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The Truth

Forget what they tell you, It's all a lieWorld domination and the eye in the skyIm not exaggerating not even slightlyThey manipulate people, so there plans are likelyIn capitol hill them cowards were laughingThe twin towers were crashing, they allowed it to happen There vindictive lies will bring mass destruction Corrupt plans and a population reduction There aim for the new world order are now in sightwith some of the sickest shit ive ever seen in my life Open your eyes we must fight back for survivalFollowers of Torah, Quaren or the Bible.Schools, music, media is just a few that they lie through Many prophets warn us this in the bible Devour the fragments and the media's sightDon't sell your soul to the devil and get lost in the night Cause deep depression and emptiness will lead to suicide It's the struggle inside yourself that keeps you alive God is watching over us to keep the evidence clear while Lucifer whispers orders Obama's earI wish I could wake up to find it's all a dream They inject technology in kid's vaccines Incarcerated by masons all related Wars over oil fields corporate hatred Hidden messages in music is just part of there deception doesn't matter what you vote cause they rigged the election So maybe your believe me and listen a bit When your online to get a micro chip in your wrist Wake up look around and you to will see the truth Before its to late and you die with the proof I got a few words for Bloomberg and Giuliani F**k George bush, Obama and the Illuminati

I Can't leave The Song

(To Tuesday’s gossips) *The comparison between Lattakia and Pariswill not be in favor of Paris! Not because I am greedyand there is no limit to my contentmentbut because as you sayto love...is somethingand to fall in love is Something else.\ When soil becomes more redand trees with much riper fruitsIf we look through the window’s break not from behind the dimly glass. Let it rainand rainand rainour hope that the sky would dry uptwo minutes awaywhen we will move down checking the growth of pillarsand the ascending stairwaysto upper floorsin the air.\ Souvenir photos were taken for usstandingwith our muddy feeton the trunks of palm treesuprooted from their far-flung origins and laid down herelike preys caught alivesnatched straight from trapsWrapped in wet clothes stillready to be raised to save timelike natural columns with crowns of frondsin any gardenbehind any fence....Wonder what on earthcould we collectif we climbed their long necksand tore their earrings! The city I was born inand never leftequals - without any bias -the city I didn’t set my foot inI have never travelled to any of them. Because tenderness is somethingand pity is something elseeven when they do nothing exceptfill up that narrow spacein which waves were ableto submerge me up to my head, starting by wetting the sole of my shoeswith heavenly blue waterif I take a little bit of in the palms of my handsI see it bluebluehowever shallow it was.The judgment will not bein favor of Parisor any other cityon the map of our dreamsbecause it looks like a secret wordKnown only to those who without asking themare permitted to passbeneath the arches of its breasts. where straight line is almost a miraclefor all what I seeleanedand twistedand slipped downside by side with raindropsplunging downwardswithout finding an escapeon the surface of the glass- lakethat tries its utmostto avoid metheir images Nor their voices.Butin their paleness They fade awayand with every stepthey look backcalling and pointing to meto follow them.I who how tightly closed the windowfound myself plastered to car's seatdeep down in my numbnesscan notLeavethesong..________________ _________12/6/1998

The Alleys

I was welcome in a palace when the ball was at my feet,I was petted in a garden and my triumph was complete.But for me above the alleys there forever shone a star,Where the third-rate public houses and the dens of Venus are.Where the third-rate public housesAnd the fourth-rate lodging houses,And the rag-shops and the pawn-shops and the dens of Venus are. I was born among the alleys, bred in darkness and in doubt,And I wrote the truth in blindness and I struggled up and out;And the world was fair before me and the way was wide and plain,But the spirit of the alleys ever dragged me back again.’Tis a madness I inheritAnd a blind and reckless spirit.Oh! the spirit of the alleys ever drags me down again!

There were fair girls in the garden where the spring came in a day,But the barmaids in the alleys know a wider world than they.There were wise men in the palace who were born to rule the earth,But the wrecks amongst the alleys know the world for what it’s worth.To the pewter from the chalice,To the slum from the palace,Aye! the wrecks sunk in the alleys know the world for what it’s worth!

Poets who have done with puzzling—men who talk but dare not think—Men who might have moulded nations had it not been for the drink!Wicked stories full of humour—shafts of wit that seldom miss,Shot from blighted lips of women that the bravest dare not kiss?Let the worst girl lead the revelsOf the reckless alley devils!—Pure and virtuous women often, often drive men down to this.

In the days of mental torture when my life was all a hell,It was down amongst the alleys that I learnt the tales I tell,From the black-sheep out from England, from the boozer in from Bourke,From the tired haggard women bending over needle-work:Tales of wrongs, that fire the spirit,Tales of more than human merit,Told in quiet tones and measured, bending over needle-work.

Oh! the pathos and the humour of the shifts of poverty,Oh! the sympathy of drunkards, wit and truth and charity,Oh! the worn-out working women and the lives that they endure,And the hard and callous kindness of the poor unto the poor!(Where they blame not—those who labour—And the prostitute’s a neighbour)Ah! the humour and the courage and the kindness of the poor!

There is fire down in the alleys that has smouldered very long;There is hatred in the alleys born of centuries of wrong;And no prayer wins to heaven like a prayer from the slums,And the thrones of empire totter when the alleys beat their drums.(Ah! the world is very rotten!But my sins shall be forgottenAnd my work shall be remembered when the alleys beat their drums.)

It is down amongst the alleys, in the alleys dull and damp,They find kindness in a scoundrel, they find good points in a scamp.It is down amongst the alleys, now my star has ceased to shine,I find sympathy with sinners and can hide what shame is mine,For we trust and shield each otherAnd a sinner is a brother—There are souls amongst the alleys who were lost the same as mine.

And if you should some day miss me, and should care to wonder why,Ask for me amongst the alleys by the name they knew me by:Mind your head and pick your footsteps for you’ll grope in alley gloom,And the stairs are steep and narrow where they’ll lead you to a room.What if floors are foul and dustyAnd the air is close and musty?In the days when I was noble then I wrote in such a room.

You will see a chair and table dimly shown by candle light,And the pen I dropped for ever from the last line I shall write;And some poor attempts at comfort, and a bottle—and maybeYou will find a bad girl crying over what is left of me:Call no friends—I shall not need them;Call no priests—I shall not heed them—Let the bad girl do the praying over what is left of me.

Pimpin' All Over The World

Oh yeah....Chorus: The fancy cars, the women and the caviar, you know who we are, cuz we're pimpin all over the world. The fancy cars, the women and the caviar, you know who we are, cuz we're pimpin all over the world.Sing it hoes: the world, the world, the worldAll over the world baby, It's only right that I share my experiences with ya'll cuz I been places you'd never imagine, but I'm gonna start at home when I see a girl I like I walk straight up to her and I'm like: Hey girl how ya doin? You are the woman that I'm really pursuin and I would like to get to know you can you give me your name if you jot down your number you'll get mine in exchange(hey) See I'm the man in this town and I hope you wouldn't mind if I showed you around, so when you go to certain places you'll be thinkin of me. We got people to meet and many places to see(hey) Mmmmm I'm really diggin your lips but be careful where you walkin when you're swing them hips. I'm kinda concerned you'll be causin a crash with your traffic jam booty heads pausin so fast(hey) I wouldn't trade you for the world I swear it. I like your hair in every style that you wear it, and how the colors coordinate with your clothes from your manicured nails to your pedicured toes (Whoo....Oh yeah)(Repeat Chorus)You hear the song so dance, don't always think I'm tryin to get in your pants. Cuz see me my pimpin's in 3D. I'm takin you places you only see on TV. Tryin to show you how you livin is trite, how many guys you know can bring the Travel Channel to life? One day we on the autoban swervin drivin, next day we in the sun on the Virgin Islands. If you wit me ain't no time to sleep 'specially at wet willy's on Miami beach but I drop you off and pay you no attention if I make to Atlanta's ????? Brothers convention. Then, jump in the car and just ride for hours, makin sure I don't miss the homecoming at Howard's. Hawaii to D.C. there's plenty women to see, so if your ass don't show up it's more women for me.Oh yeah...(Repeat Chorus)I'm in New York at the Puerto Rican day parade, then at night I'm in New Orleans drinkin hand grenades. Outnumbered by the dozens at the Jazzfest, then Mardis Gras all the women tryin to show me their chest. I'm in Jamaica spendin massive bucks while the ladies all beggin me to ?????? I had sad beginnings when I rapped with no fans now it's all happy endings on my lap in Japan. I used to think that it was way too cold, til I went to Canada and saw some beautiful hoes now I hit the Caribana every year in Toronto, then fly to Illinois and get a taste of Chicago. Oh yet and still, you wouldn't believe your eyes if you went to Brazil. (But where the best at?) Ain't no need in even askin bro the best women all reside in Africa and that's real. (Whoo...Oh yeah)Repeat ChorusSing it hoes: The world, the world, the worldPimpin pimpin pimpin....ladies and gentelmen as we ride out, could we have all the real pimps please, put both your pinky fingers high in the air. Now ladies, look around with me and lets see if we can't weed some of these niggas out, cuz it ain't no way that all these niggas could be pimpin. Now if happen to see a nigga with 2 sweat patches up under his arm look like he been swimmin in shoulder height water, please tell that nigga, put yo hands down. If you smell like you been at work all day and drakkar please put your hands down. Now look up at the pinky fingers that are still in the air. If you see 'em ashy around the knuckles like the nigga washed half his hands and lotioned three quarters of his body, please say, put yo hand's down. If your spinning rims spin counter clockwise, you are not pimpin. If you are dancin on the dance floor and you look to your left and your right and there is not a woman in sight, guess what? You guessed it, you are not pimpin. If you're vodka and cranberry is really really dark, like blood, that's because you didn't order vodka buddy, and that's why it's three dollars a glass. Oh put your hands down. Now look down, look down now i need, i need everybody to just to pull up your pants leg one time. Ok, you see the nigga with the white socks? Not pimpin!

At the Brothel

I was with a friend that night, He was going to take of at a secret place nearby.Full of curiosity, I followed his steps, Leaving behind no trace..

On the deserted road, Bus no.29 we board; Ten minutes after, we reached the place, I wonder whether it was 'Night or Day'..

The Place_-

Full of life, Full of joy; Every women like Helen of Troy..Down the aisle someone appeared, 'Follow me', whispered in the year and then disappeared..

From there on, me and my friend parted; Only to meet at the time when 'day' started..I followed her, Looking around everything pleasing, The smell of Rose so appealing; I dont know what perfume she used or she used or not, Well, I was just enjoying the ecstasy she brought..

Something strange was the atmosphere, Smile floating everywhere; Felt like I found Eldorado, In the midst of frustations' tornado..

A bit smoky was the environment, But not suffocating; Everyone reaching to contentment, But I kept on waiting..

Dim light, Dark night..But I wasn't afraid, I went on wherever the path lead..

Not a single hand was vacant, For someone else to hold; Number of people like pie by 2 of secant, And everyone having their lover to behold..

I could smell her, I feelSearching for her, my eyes bleed..Whisper echoing my head, Insisting me to tread..I was almost lost, Going forward and backward but at last, Didn't take care of my path, Eventually I slid, Someone grabbed me in a blink, To my amazement, it was She..

The Journey from there on_-

Got back upon my feet, Her hands so soft, I thought she used 'Veet'..Looked into her eyes straight, My Dream Girl, at last we met..

Pending Sheet and DPP's, Not a single thing dared to bother, As we went on together..Walking hand in hand, we found an inn; In an unknown land, a place unseen;

She promised- She'll show me the places where I've never been, But first of all let us get cleaned..I went to wash my face, Hoping for a warm embrace..

Then to reception to collect the keys, Any rooms available, please..

The Owner: The lady with you already collected.Me: Pardon, Which room she selected?

The Owner: Two Zero One, Sir! Me (thinking) : May be a lucky no. for her..

The Owner: Did you said something? Me: No, I was just thinking..

The Owner: Will you be buying the treat? Me: Wait, first let of ask, what she wants to eat..

The Owner: Ok, then I'll be sending waiter to your room.Me: Yeah sure just do it soon..

I went up and knocked the door.She: I'm changing. Don't bang any more

Me: What if you're not dressed complete? I can come in.She: Darling, How mean?

Me: Will you've something to eat? She: No, will just see you, my appetite complete..

Just ordered for coffee, as it was cold; The greatest night of my life was about to unfold..

Heard the unbolting of the door, All at once startled for sure;

Her long locks and the black gown, Oh God! I'm literally drowned.A ribbon on the waist, Two buttons on the chest..

She said 'Sir' and leaned at the gate, Have you ever been so close, so intimate? No, no MadamThis is the first time I'm being an Adam.

Felt like all my pains was about to curb, A tag outside the door saying, 'Do not Disturb'!

I went inside and it was warm, Appreciating her face, full of charm.

She: You seem so nervous, so sweaty..Me: Never had something so got in vicinity..She: Tch.. Tch.. Tch.. So pity..Me: Am I the only looser in the city? ?

She laughed and avoided, No specific reasons provided..

The Room_-

It gave the effect of a Honeymoon suite, Eased off myself by putting off my boots..

There was a baby's photo on the wall, And that baby holding a playing ball..I saw that picture and them turned to her face.God! Her cheeks so red, As if she's ashamed..

And this time we laughed and avoided.No need of reasons to be provided..

From my 5800, took her pics, Her awesome eyes and her glowing cheeks.

Just when I was about to hold her hand, The Door banged

'You ******** whore, Open the door', a harsh voice roared..I could see fear floating in her eyes, Her eye as if they gonna cry..

She: The voice, It's of the man who bought me yesterday, His behaviour so rough, I ran off today..

I watched her for a while and to the balcony door I gaze.Sweetheart, Let's escape..

Escape_-

From the second floor, almost impossible to jump down; Took out bedsheets and tied them around..Somehow we came down, It was cold outside and she was just in her gown..

Untied a bed sheet and threw around her body, God! Even in that she looked pretty.. That black bed sheet and pink flowers in them, For her miserable situation who is to blame?

As we were running as fast as we could, I noticed she wasn't running as fast as she should..

She sprained her legs, And to move every inch she now begs, Didnt think of anything, lifted her up; Promised to myself, I won't give up..

She: Why are you doing this to me? All these things, you don't have to be..Me: I don't know, what's happening to me? Just wanna save you from your enemy..

She was still feeling cold, I could feel, Bought her a pink jacket from the local mill..Mill which was still functioning in the night, Took shelter there, under the warm light..Warm light from the glowing bulb, Her sprain she told was almost curb'd..

Lighted up my cigarette, to ease off my worryShe: To die darling, why are you in so hurry? Put this dirt out of your mouth, Just don't force me to shout..

Me: Then do something to make me easy, Plan of something to keep my lips busy..

She kissed me, Felt like I'm at the top of world, At the top of mountain; Tasting love from the purest fountain..Just from the first kiss, I became insane..Kissing her over and over again..

It was my number..But where the hell is my phone, Dropped it on the way unknown..

Me: Forget it, cut the call.That phone was precious just for your pic; Since I have you, my phone I don't seek..

Drop this, Let's have something to eat, Need something for hunger to beat..

Then we had our Maggi; Maggi never tasted better, Just two of up in that shelter..

Me: As the day breaks into the new Sun..Together we'll run..She: But where? Me: A place away from fear..

By 5 am, reache railway station..From ticket counter got reservation..In the waiting room, Waiting for the train to arrive, Planning things ahead of my life..Felt asleep on her shoulder, And when I woke upLighting and Thunder...

She was gone, And I was left alone...

[ I noticed my upper pocket was heavy. When i searched, i found it was my phone. She went back to the guy who bought her. But she left a message..]

' 'I'm not a good girl, you know; A kind of girl whom people always throw..

I was always a threat to your life, And now I sincerely hope, you find a beautiful wife..Someone who'll love you more than anyone can do, Love that is gentle, warm, tender and true..

The Lady Of La Garaye - Part II

A FIRST walk after sickness: the sweet breeze That murmurs welcome in the bending trees, When the cold shadowy foe of life departs, And the warm blood flows freely through our hearts: The smell of roses,--sound of trickling streams, The elastic turf cross-barred with golden gleams, That seems to lift, and meet our faltering tread; The happy birds, loud singing overhead; The glorious range of distant shade and light, In blue perspective, rapturous to our sight, Weary of draperied curtains folding round, And the monotonous chamber's narrow bound; With,--best of all,--the consciousness at length, In every nerve of sure returning strength:--

Long the dream stayed to cheer that darkened room, That this should be the end of all that gloom!

Long, as the vacant life trained idly by, She pressed her pillow with a restless sigh,-- 'To-morrow, surely, I shall stronger feel!' To-morrow! but the slow days onward steal, And find her still with feverish aching head, Still cramped with pain; still lingering in her bed; Still sighing out the tedium of the time; Still listening to the clock's recurring chime, As though the very hours that struck were foes, And might, but would not, grant complete respose. Until the skilled physician,--sadly bold From frequent questioning,--her sentence told! That no good end could come to her faint yearning,-- That no bright hour should see her health returning,-- That changeful seasons,--not for one dark year, But on through life,--must teach her how to bear: For through all Springs, with rainbow-tinted showers, And through all Summers, with their wealth of flowers, And every Autumn, with its harvest-home, And all white Winters of the time to come,-- Crooked and sick for ever she must be: Her life of wild activity and glee Was with the past, the future was a life Dismal and feeble; full of suffering; rife With chill denials of accustomed joy, Continual torment, and obscure annoy. Blighted in all her bloom,--her withered frame Must now inherit age; young but in name. Never could she, at close of some long day Of pain that strove with hope, exulting lay A tiny new-born infant on her breast, And, in the soft lamp's glimmer, sink to rest, The strange corporeal weakness sweetly blent With a delicious dream of full content; With pride of motherhood, and thankful prayers, And a confused glad sense of novel cares, And peeps into the future brightly given, As though her babe's blue eyes turned earth to heaven! Never again could she, when Claud returned After brief absence, and her fond heart yearned To see his earnest eyes, with upward glancing, Greet her known windows, even while yet advancing,-- Fly with light footsteps down the great hall-stair, And give him welcome in the open air As though she were too glad to see him come, To wait till he should enter happy home, And there, quick-breathing, glowing, sparkling stand, His arm round her slim waist; hand locked in hand; The mutual kiss exchanged of happy greeting, That needs no secrecy of lovers' meeting; While, giving welcome also in their way, Her dogs barked rustling round him, wild with play; And voices called, and hasty steps replied, And the sleek fiery steed was led aside, And the grey seneschal came forth and smiled, Who held him in his arms while yet a child; And cheery jinglings from unfastened doors, And vaulted echoes through long corridors, And distant bells that thrill along the wires, And stir of logs that heap up autumn fires, Crowned the glad eager bustle that makes known The Master's step is on his threshold-stone!

Never again those rides so gladly shared, So much enjoyed,--in which so much was dared To prove no peril from the gate or brook,-- Need bring the shadow of an anxious look, To mar the pleasant ray of proud surprise That shone from out those dear protecting eyes. No more swift hurrying through the summer rain, That showered light silver on the freshened plain, Hung on the tassels of the hazel bough, And plashed the azure of the river's flow. No more glad climbing of the mountain height, From whence a map, drawn out in lines of light, Showed dotting villages, and distant spires, And the red rows of metal-burning fires, And purple covering woods, within which stand White mansions of the nobles of the land.

No more sweet wanderings far from tread of men, In the deep thickets of the sunny glen, To see the vanished Spring bud forth again; Its well remembered tufts of primrose set Among the sheltered banks of violet; Or in thatched summer-houses sit and dream, Through gurgling gushes of the woodland stream; Then, rested rise, and by the sunset ray Saunter at will along the homeward way; Pausing at each delight,--the singing loud Of some sweet thrush, e'er lingering eve be done; Or the pink shining of some casual cloud That blushes deeper as it nears the sun.

The rough woodpath; the little rocky burn; Nothing of this can ever now return. The life of joy is over: what is left Is a half life; a life of strength bereft; The body broken from the yearning soul, Never again to make a perfect whole! Helpless desires, and cravings unfulfilled; Bitter regret, in stormy weepings stilled; Strivings whose easy effort used to bless, Grown full of danger and sharp weariness; This is the life whose dreadful dawn must rise When the night lifts, within whose gloom she lies: Hope, on whose lingering help she leaned so late, Struck from her clinging by the sword of fate-- That wild word NEVER, to her shrinking gaze, Seems written on the wall in fiery rays.

Never!--our helpless changeful natures shrink Before that word as from the grave's cold brink! Set us a term whereto we must endure, And you shall find our crown of patience sure; But the irrevocable smites us down;-- Helpless we lie before the eternal frown; Waters of Marah whelm the blinded soul, Stifle the heart, and drown our self-control. So, when she heard the grave physician speak, Horror crept through her veins, who, faint and weak, And tortured by all motion, yet had lain With a meek cheerfulness that conquered pain, Hoping,--till that dark hour. Give back the hope, Though years rise sad with intervening scope! Scarce can those radiant eyes with sickly stare Yet comprehend that sentence of despair: Crooked and sick for ever! Crooked and sick! She, in whose veins the passionate blood ran quick As leaps the rivulet from the mountain height, That dances rippling into Summer light; She, in whose cheek the rich bloom always stayed, And only deepened to a lovelier shade; She, whose fleet limbs no exercise could tire, When wild hill-climbing wooed her spirit higher! Knell not above her bed this funeral chime; Bid her be prisoner for a certain time; Tell her blank years must waste in that changed home, But not for ever,--not for life to come; Let infinite torture be her daily guest, But set a term beyond which shall be rest.

In vain! she sees that trembling fountain rise, Tears of compassion in an old man's eyes; And in low pitying tones, again he tells The doom that sounds to her like funeral bells. Long on his face her wistful gaze she kept; Then dropped her head, and wildly moaned and wept; Shivering through every limb, as lightning thought Smote her with all the endless ruin wrought. Never to be a mother! Never give Another life beyond her own to live, Never to see her husband bless their child, Thinking (dear blessèd thought!) like him it smiled: Never again with Claud to walk or ride, Partake his pleasures with a playful pride, But cease from all companionship so shared, And only have the hours his pity spared. His pity--ah! his pity, would it prove As warm and lasting as admiring love? Or would her petty joys' late-spoken doom Carry the great joy with them to joy's tomb? Would all the hopes of life at once take wing? The thought went through her with a secret sting, And she repeated, with a moaning cry, 'Better to die, O God! 'Twere best to die!' But we die not by wishing; in God's hour, And not our own, do we yield up the power To suffer or enjoy. The broken heart Creeps through the world, encumbered by its clay; While dearly loved and cherished ones depart, Though prayer and sore lamenting clog their way.

She lived: she left that sick room, and was brought Into the scenes of customary thought: The banquet-room, where lonely sunshine slept, Saw her sweet eyes look round before she wept; The garden heard the slow wheels of her chair, When noon-day heat had warmed the untried air; The pictures she had smiled upon for years, Met her gaze trembling through a mist of tears; Her favourite dog, his long unspoken name Hearing once more, with timid fawning came; It seemed as if all things partook her blight, And sank in shadow like a spell of night.

And she saw Claud,--Claud in the open day, Who through dim sunsets, curtained half away, And by the dawn, and by the lamp's pale ray So long had watched her! And Claud also saw, That beauty which was once without a flaw; And flushed,--but strove to hide the sense of shock,-- The feelings that some witchcraft seemed to mock. Are those her eyes, those eyes so full of pain? Her restless looks that hunt for ease in vain? Is that her step, that halt uneven tread? Is that her blooming cheek, so pale and dead? Is that,--the querulous anxious mind that tells Its little ills, and on each ailment dwells,-- The spirit alert which early morning stirred Even as it rouses every gladsome bird, Whose chorus of irregular music goes Up with the dew that leaves the sun-touched rose?

Oh! altered, altered; even the smile is gone, Which, like a sunbeam, once exulting shone! Smiles have returned; but not the smiles of yore; The joy, the youth, the triumph, are no more. An anxious smile remains, that disconnects Smiling from gladness; one that more dejects, Than floods of passionate weeping, for it tries To contradict the question of our eyes: We say, 'Thou'rt pained, poor heart, and full of woe?' It drops that shining veil, and answers 'No;' Shrinks from the touch of unaccepted hands, And while it grieves, a show of joy commands. Wan shine such smiles;--as evening sunlight falls On a deserted house whose empty walls No longer echo to the children's play Or voice of ruined inmates fled away; Where wintry winds alone, with idle state, Move the slow swinging of its rusty gate.

But something sadder even than her pain Torments her now; and thrills each languid vein. Love's tender instinct feels through every nerve When love's desires, or love itself doth swerve. All the world's praise re-echoed to the sky Cancels not blame that shades a lover's eye; All the world's blame, which scorn for scorn repays, Fails to disturb the joy of lover's praise. Ah! think not vanity alone doth deck Wtih rounded pearls the young girl's innocent neck, Who in her duller days contented tries The homely robe that with no rival vies, But on the happy night she hopes to meet The one to whom she comes with trembling feet, With crimson roses decks her bosom fair, Warm as the thoughts of love all glowing there, Because she must his favourite colours wear; And all the bloom and beauty of her youth Can scarce repay, she thinks, her lover's truth.

Vain is the argument so often moved, 'Who feels no jealousy hath never loved;' She whose quick fading comes before her tomb, Is jealous even of her former bloom. Restless she pines; because, to her distress, One charm the more is now one claim the less On his regard whose words are her chief treasures, And by whose love alone her worth she measures.

Gertrude of La Garaye, thy heart is sore; A worm is gnawing at the rose's core, A doubt corrodeth all thy tender trust, The freshness of thy day is choked in dust. Not for the pain--although the pain be great, Not for the change--though changed be all thy state; But for a sorrow dumb and unrevealed, Most from its cause with mournful care concealed-- From Claud--who goes and who returns with sighs And gazes on his wife with wistful eyes, And muses in his brief and cheerless rides If her dull mood will mend; and inly chides His own sad spirit, that sinks down so low, Instead of lifting her from all her woe; And thinks if he but loved her less, that he Could cheer her drooping soul with gaiety-- But wonders evermore that Beauty's loss To such a soul should seem so sore a cross.

Until one evening in that quiet hush That lulls the falling day, when all the gush Of various sounds seem buried with the sun, He told his thought. As winter streamlets run, Freed by some sudden thaw, and swift make wayInto the natural channels where they play, So leaped her young heart to his tender tone, So, answering to his warmth, resumed her own; And all her doubt and all her grief confest, Leaning her faint head on his faithful breast.

'Not always, Claud, did I my beauty prize; Thy words first made it precious in my eyes, And till thy fond voice made the gift seem rare, Nor tongue nor mirror taught me I was fair. I recked no more of beauty in that day Of happy girlishness and childlike play, Than some poor woodland bird who stays his flight On some low bough when summer days are bright, And in that pleasant sunshine sits and sings, And breaks the plumage of his glistening wings, Recks of the passer-by who stands to praise His feathered smoothness and his thrilling lays. But now, I make my moan--I make my moan-- I weep the brightness lost, the beauty gone; Because, now, fading is to fall from thee, As the dead fruit falls blighted from the tree; For thee,--not vanished loveliness,--I weep; My beauty was a spell, thy love to keep; For I have heard and read how men forsake When time and tears that gift of beauty take, Nor care although the heart they leave may break!'

A husband's love was there--a husband's love,-- Strong, comforting, all other loves above; On her bowed neck he laid his tender hand, And his voice steadied to his soul's command: 'Oh! thou mistaken and unhappy child, Still thy complainings, for thy words are wild. Thy beauty, though so perfect, was but one Of the bright ripples dancing to the sun, Which, from the hour I hoped to call thee wife, Glanced down the silver stream of happy life. Whatever change Time's heavy clouds may make, Those are the waters which my thirst shall slake; River of all my hopes thou wert and art; The current of thy being bears my heart; Whether it sweep along in shine or shade, By barren rocks, or banks in flowers arrayed, Foam with the storm, or glide in soft repose,-- In that deep channel, love unswerving flows! How canst thou dream of beauty as a thing On which depends the heart's own withering? Lips budding red wth tints of vernal years, And delicate lids of eyes that shed no tears, And light that falls upon the shining hair As though it found a second sunbeam there,-- These must go by, my Gertrude, must go by; The leaf must wither and the flower must die; The rose can only have a rose's bloom; Age would have wrought thy wondrous beauty's doom; A little sooner did that beauty go-- A little sooner--Darling, take it so; Nor add a strange despair to all this woe; And take my faith, by changes unremoved, To thy last hour of age and blight, beloved!'

But she again,--'Alas! not from distrust I mourn, dear Claud, nor yet to thee unjust. I love thee: I believe thee: yea, I know Thy very soul is wrung to see my woe; The earthquake of compassion trembles still Within its depths, and conquers natural will. But after,--after,--when the shock is past,-- When cruel Time, who flies to change so fast, Hath made my suffering an accustomed thing, And only left me slowly withering; Then will the empty days rise chill and lorn, The lonely evening, the unwelcome morn, Until thy path at length be brightly crost By some one holding all that I have lost; Some one with youthful eyes, enchanting, bright, Full as the morning of a liquid light; And while my pale lip stiff and sad remains, Her smiles shall thrill like sunbeams through thy veins: I shall fade down, and she, with simple art, All bloom and beauty, dance into thy heart! Then, then, my Claud, shall I--at length alone-- Recede from thee with an unnoticed moan, Sink where none heed me, and be seen no more, Like waves that fringe the Netherlandish shore, Which roll unmurmuring to the flat low land, And sigh to death in that monotonous sand.'

Again his earnest hand on hers he lays, With love and pain and wonder in his gaze.

'Oh, darling! bitter word and bitter thought What dæmon to thy trusting heart hath brought? It may be thus within some sensual breast, By passion's fire, not true love's power possest; The creature love, that never lingers late, A springtide thirst for some chance-chosen mate. Oh! my companion, 'twas not so with me; Not in the days long past, nor now shall be. The drunken dissolute hour of Love's sweet cup, When eyes are wild, and mantling blood is up, Even in my youth to me was all unknown: Until I truly loved, I was alone. I asked too much of intellect and grace, To pine, though young, for every pretty face, Whose passing brightness to quick fancies made A sort of sunshine in the idle shade; Beauties who starred the earth like common flowers, The careless eglantines of wayside bowers. I lingered till some blossom rich and rare Hung like a glory on the scented air, Enamouring at once the heart and eye, So that I paused, and could not pass it by. Then woke the passionate love within my heart, And only with my life shall that depart; 'Twas not so sensual strong, so loving weak, To ebb when ebbs the rose-tinge on thy cheek; Fade with thy fading, weakening day by day Till thy locks silver with a dawning grey: No, Gertrude, trust me, for thou may'st believe, A better faith is that which I receive; Sacred I'll hold the sacred name of wife, And love thee to the sunset verge of life! Yea, shall so much of empire o'er man's soul Live in a wanton's smile, and no control Bind down his heart to keep a steadier faith, For links that are to last from life to death? Let those who can, in transient love rejoice,-- Still to new hopes breathe forth successive sighs,-- Give me the music of the accustomed voice, And the sweet light of long familiar eyes!'

He ceased. But she, for all her fervent speech, Sighed as she listened. 'Claud, I cannot reach The summit of the hope where thou wouldst set me, And all I crave is never to forget me! Wedded I am to pain and not to thee, Thy life's companion I no more can be, For thou remainest all thou wert--but IAm a fit bride for Death, and long to die. Yea, long for death; for thou wouldst miss me then More even than now, in mountain and in glen; And musing by the white tomb where I lay, Think of the happier time and earlier day, And wonder if the love another gave Equalled the passion buried in that grave.'

Then with a patient tenderness he took That pale wife in his arms, with yearning look: 'Oh! dearer now than when thy girlish tongue Faltered consent to love while both were young, Weep no more foolish tears, but lift thy head; Those drops fall on my heart like molten lead; And all my soul is full of vain remorse, Because I let thee take that dangerous course, Share in the chase, pursue with horn and hound, And follow madly o'er the roughened ground. Not lightly did I love, nor lightly choose; Whate'er thou losest I will also lose; If bride of Death,--being first my chosen bride,-- I will await death, lingering by thy side; And God, He knows, who reads all human thought, And by whose will this bitter hour was brought, How eagerly, could human pain be shifted, I would lie low, and thou once more be lifted To walk in beauty as thou didst before, And smile upon the welcome world once more. Oh! loved even to the brim of love's full fount, Wilt thou set nothing to firm faith's account? Choke back thy tears which are thy bitter smart, Lean thy dear head upon my aching heart; It may be God, who saw our careless life, Not sinful, yet not blameless, my sweet wife, (Since all we thought of, in our youth's bright May, Was but the coming joy from day to day Hath blotted out all joy to bid us learn That this is not our home; and make us turn From the enchanted earth, where much was given, To higher aims, and a forgotten heaven.'

So spoke her love--and wept in spite of words; While her heart echoed all his heart's accords, And leaning down, she said with whispering sigh, 'I sinned, my Claud, in wishing so to die.' Then they, who oft in Love's delicious bowers Had fondly wasted glad and passionate hours, Kissed with a mutual moan:--but o'er their lips Love's light passed clear, from under Life's eclipse.

The Scripture of the Golden Eternity

1Did I create that sky? Yes, for, if it was anything other than a conception in my mind I wouldnt have said 'Sky'-That is why I am the golden eternity. There are not two of us here, reader and writer, but one, one golden eternity, One-Which-It-Is, That-Which- Everything-Is.

2The awakened Buddha to show the way, the chosen Messiah to die in the degradation of sentience, is the golden eternity. One that is what is, the golden eternity, or, God, or, Tathagata-the name. The Named One. The human God. Sentient Godhood. Animate Divine. The Deified One. The Verified One. The Free One. The Liberator. The Still One. The settled One. The Established One. Golden Eternity. All is Well. The Empty One. The Ready One. The Quitter. The Sitter. The Justified One. The Happy One.

3That sky, if it was anything other than an illusion of my mortal mind I wouldnt have said 'that sky.' Thus I made that sky, I am the golden eternity. I am Mortal Golden Eternity.

4I was awakened to show the way, chosen to die in the degradation of life, because I am Mortal Golden Eternity.

5I am the golden eternity in mortal animate form.

6Strictly speaking, there is no me, because all is emptiness. I am empty, I am non-existent. All is bliss.

7This truth law has no more reality than the world.

8You are the golden eternity because there is no me and no you, only one golden eternity.

9The Realizer. Entertain no imaginations whatever, for the thing is a no-thing. Knowing this then is Human Godhood.

10This world is the movie of what everything is, it is one movie, made of the same stuff throughout, belonging to nobody, which is what everything is.

11If we were not all the golden eternity we wouldnt be here. Because we are here we cant help being pure. To tell man to be pure on account of the punishing angel that punishes the bad and the rewarding angel that rewards the good would be like telling the water 'Be Wet'-Never the less, all things depend on supreme reality, which is already established as the record of Karma earned-fate.

12God is not outside us but is just us, the living and the dead, the never-lived and never-died. That we should learn it only now, is supreme reality, it was written a long time ago in the archives of universal mind, it is already done, there's no more to do.

13This is the knowledge that sees the golden eternity in all things, which is us, you, me, and which is no longer us, you, me.

14What name shall we give it which hath no name, the common eternal matter of the mind? If we were to call it essence, some might think it meant perfume, or gold, or honey. It is not even mind. It is not even discussible, groupable into words; it is not even endless, in fact it is not even mysterious or inscrutably inexplicable; it is what is; it is that; it is this. We could easily call the golden eternity 'This.' But 'what's in a name?' asked Shakespeare. The golden eternity by another name would be as sweet. A Tathagata, a God, a Buddha by another name, an Allah, a Sri Krishna, a Coyote, a Brahma, a Mazda, a Messiah, an Amida, an Aremedeia, a Maitreya, a Palalakonuh, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 would be as sweet. The golden eternity is X, the golden eternity is A, the golden eternity is /\, the golden eternity is O, the golden eternity is [ ], the golden eternity is t-h-e-g-o-l-d-e-n-e-t-e-r- n-i-t-y. In the beginning was the word; before the beginning, in the beginningless infinite neverendingness, was the essence. Both the word 'god' and the essence of the word, are emptiness. The form of emptiness which is emptiness having taken the form of form, is what you see and hear and feel right now, and what you taste and smell and think as you read this. Wait awhile, close your eyes, let your breathing stop three seconds or so, listen to the inside silence in the womb of the world, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, re-recognize the bliss you forgot, the emptiness and essence and ecstasy of ever having been and ever to be the golden eternity. This is the lesson you forgot.

15The lesson was taught long ago in the other world systems that have naturally changed into the empty and awake, and are here now smiling in our smile and scowling in our scowl. It is only like the golden eternity pretending to be smiling and scowling to itself; like a ripple on the smooth ocean of knowing. The fate of humanity is to vanish into the golden eternity, return pouring into its hands which are not hands. The navel shall receive, invert, and take back what'd issued forth; the ring of flesh shall close; the personalities of long dead heroes are blank dirt.

16The point is we're waiting, not how comfortable we are while waiting. Paleolithic man waited by caves for the realization of why he was there, and hunted; modern men wait in beautified homes and try to forget death and birth. We're waiting for the realization that this is the golden eternity.

17It came on time.

18There is a blessedness surely to be believed, and that is that everything abides in eternal ecstasy, now and forever.

19Mother Kali eats herself back. All things but come to go. All these holy forms, unmanifest, not even forms, truebodies of blank bright ecstasy, abiding in a trance, 'in emptiness and silence' as it is pointed out in the Diamond-cutter, asked to be only what they are: GLAD.

20The secret God-grin in the trees and in the teapot, in ashes and fronds, fire and brick, flesh and mental human hope. All things, far from yearning to be re-united with God, had never left themselves and here they are, Dharmakaya, the body of the truth law, the universal Thisness.

21'Beyond the reach of change and fear, beyond all praise and blame,' the Lankavatara Scripture knows to say, is he who is what he is in time and time-less-ness, in ego and in ego-less-ness, in self and in self-less-ness.

22Stare deep into the world before you as if it were the void: innumerable holy ghosts, buddhies, and savior gods there hide, smiling. All the atoms emitting light inside wavehood, there is no personal separation of any of it. A hummingbird can come into a house and a hawk will not: so rest and be assured. While looking for the light, you may suddenly be devoured by the darkness and find the true light.

23Things dont tire of going and coming. The flies end up with the delicate viands.

24The cause of the world's woe is birth, The cure of the world's woe is a bent stick.

25Though it is everything, strictly speaking there is no golden eternity because everything is nothing: there are no things and no goings and comings: for all is emptiness, and emptiness is these forms, emptiness is this one formhood.

26All these selfnesses have already vanished. Einstein measured that this present universe is an expanding bubble, and you know what that means.

27Discard such definite imaginations of phenomena as your own self, thou human being, thou'rt a numberless mass of sun-motes: each mote a shrine. The same as to your shyness of other selves, selfness as divided into infinite numbers of beings, or selfness as identified as one self existing eternally. Be obliging and noble, be generous with your time and help and possessions, and be kind, because the emptiness of this little place of flesh you carry around and call your soul, your entity, is the same emptiness in every direction of space unmeasurable emptiness, the same, one, and holy emptiness everywhere: why be selfy and unfree, Man God, in your dream? Wake up, thou'rt selfless and free. 'Even and upright your mind abides nowhere,' states Hui Neng of China. We're all in heaven now.

28Roaring dreams take place in a perfectly silent mind. Now that we know this, throw the raft away.

29Are you tightwad and are you mean, those are the true sins, and sin is only a conception of ours, due to long habit. Are you generous and are you kind, those are the true virtues, and they're only conceptions. The golden eternity rests beyond sin and virtue, is attached to neither, is attached to nothing, is unattached, because the golden eternity is Alone. The mold has rills but it is one mold. The field has curves but it is one field. All things are different forms of the same thing. I call it the golden eternity-what do you call it, brother? for the blessing and merit of virtue, and the punishment and bad fate of sin, are alike just so many words.

30Sociability is a big smile, and a big smile is nothing but teeth. Rest and be kind.

31There's no need to deny that evil thing called GOOGOO, which doesnt exist, just as there's no need to deny that evil thing called Sex and Rebirth, which also doesn't exist, as it is only a form of emptiness. The bead of semen comes from a long line of awakened natures that were your parent, a holy flow, a succession of saviors pouring from the womb of the dark void and back into it, fantastic magic imagination of the lightning, flash, plays, dreams, not even plays, dreams.

32'The womb of exuberant fertility,' Ashvhaghosha called it, radiating forms out of its womb of exuberant emptiness. In emptiness there is no Why, no knowledge of Why, no ignorance of Why, no asking and no answering of Why, and no significance attached to this.

33A disturbed and frightened man is like the golden eternity experimentally pretending at feeling the disturbed-and-frightened mood; a calm and joyous man, is like the golden eternity pretending at experimenting with that experience; a man experiencing his Sentient Being, is like the golden eternity pretending at trying that out too; a man who has no thoughts, is like the golden eternity pretending at being itself; because the emptiness of everything has no beginning and no end and at present is infinite.

34'Love is all in all,' said Sainte Therese, choosing Love for her vocation and pouring out her happiness, from her garden by the gate, with a gentle smile, pouring roses on the earth, so that the beggar in the thunderbolt received of the endless offering of her dark void. Man goes a-beggaring into nothingness. 'Ignorance is the father, Habit-Energy is the Mother.' Opposites are not the same for the same reason they are the same.

35The words 'atoms of dust' and 'the great universes' are only words. The idea that they imply is only an idea. The belief that we live here in this existence, divided into various beings, passing food in and out of ourselves, and casting off husks of bodies one after another with no cessation and no definite or particular discrimination, is only an idea. The seat of our Immortal Intelligence can be seen in that beating light between the eyes the Wisdom Eye of the ancients: we know what we're doing: we're not disturbed: because we're like the golden eternity pretending at playing the magic cardgame and making believe it's real, it's a big dream, a joyous ecstasy of words and ideas and flesh, an ethereal flower unfolding a folding back, a movie, an exuberant bunch of lines bounding emptiness, the womb of Avalokitesvara, a vast secret silence, springtime in the Void, happy young gods talking and drinking on a cloud. Our 32,000 chillicosms bear all the marks of excellence. Blind milky light fills our night; and the morning is crystal.

36Give a gift to your brother, but there's no gift to compare with the giving of assurance that he is the golden eternity. The true understanding of this would bring tears to your eyes. The other shore is right here, forgive and forget, protect and reassure. Your tormenters will be purified. Raise thy diamond hand. Have faith and wait. The course of your days is a river rumbling over your rocky back. You're sitting at the bottom of the world with a head of iron. Religion is thy sad heart. You're the golden eternity and it must be done by you. And means one thing: Nothing-Ever-Happened. This is the golden eternity.

37When the Prince of the Kalinga severed the flesh from the limbs and body of Buddha, even then the Buddha was free from any such ideas as his own self, other self, living beings divided into many selves, or living beings united and identified into one eternal self. The golden eternity isnt 'me.' Before you can know that you're dreaming you'll wake up, Atman. Had the Buddha, the Awakened One, cherished any of these imaginary judgments of and about things, he would have fallen into impatience and hatred in his suffering. Instead, like Jesus on the Cross he saw the light and died kind, loving all living things.

38The world was spun out of a blade of grass: the world was spun out of a mind. Heaven was spun out of a blade of grass: heaven was spun out of a mind. Neither will do you much good, neither will do you much harm. The Oriental imperturbed, is the golden eternity.

39He is called a Yogi, his is called a Priest, a Minister, a Brahmin, a Parson, a Chaplain, a Roshi, a Laoshih, a Master, a Patriarch, a Pope, a Spiritual Commissar, a Counselor, and Adviser, a Bodhisattva-Mahasattva, an Old Man, a Saint, a Shaman, a Leader, who thinks nothing of himself as separate from another self, not higher nor lower, no stages and no definite attainments, no mysterious stigmata or secret holyhood, no wild dark knowledge and no venerable authoritativeness, nay a giggling sage sweeping out of the kitchen with a broom. After supper, a silent smoke. Because there is no definite teaching: the world is undisciplined. Nature endlessly in every direction inward to your body and outward into space.

40Meditate outdoors. The dark trees at night are not really the dark trees at night, it's only the golden eternity.

41A mosquito as big as Mount Everest is much bigger than you think: a horse's hoof is more delicate than it looks. An altar consecrated to the golden eternity, filled with roses and lotuses and diamonds, is the cell of the humble prisoner, the cell so cold and dreary. Boethius kissed the Robe of the Mother Truth in a Roman dungeon.

42Do you think the emptiness of the sky will ever crumble away? Every little child knows that everybody will go to heaven. Knowing that nothing ever happened is not really knowing that nothing ever happened, it's the golden eternity. In other words, nothing can compare with telling your brother and your sister that what happened, what is happening, and what will happen, never really happened, is not really happening and never will happen, it is only the golden eternity. Nothing was ever born, nothing will ever die. Indeed, it didnt even happen that you heard about golden eternity through the accidental reading of this scripture. The thing is easily false. There are no warnings whatever issuing from the golden eternity: do what you want.

43Even in dreams be kind, because anyway there is no time, no space, no mind. 'It's all not-born,' said Bankei of Japan, whose mother heard this from her son did what we call 'died happy.' And even if she had died unhappy, dying unhappy is not really dying unhappy, it's the golden eternity. It's impossible to exist, it's impossible to be persecuted, it's impossible to miss your reward.

44Eight hundred and four thousand myriads of Awakened Ones throughout numberless swirls of epochs appeared to work hard to save a grain of sand, and it was only the golden eternity. And their combined reward will be no greater and no lesser than what will be won by a piece of dried turd. It's a reward beyond thought.

45When you've understood this scripture, throw it away. If you cant understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom.

46O everlasting Eternity, all things and all truth laws are no- things, in three ways, which is the same way: AS THINGS OF TIME they dont exist because there is no furthest atom than can be found or weighed or grasped, it is emptiness through and through, matter and empty space too. AS THINGS OF MIND they dont exist, because the mind that conceives and makes them out does so by seeing, hearing touching, smelling, tasting, and mentally-noticing and without this mind they would not be seen or heard or felt or smelled or tasted or mentally-noticed, they are discriminated that which they're not necessarily by imaginary judgments of the mind, they are actually dependent on the mind that makes them out, by themselves they are no-things, they are really mental, seen only of the mind, they are really empty visions of the mind, heaven is a vision, everything is a vision. What does it mean that I am in this endless universe thinking I'm a man sitting under the stars on the terrace of earth, but actually empty and awake throughout the emptiness and awakedness of everything? It means that I am empty and awake, knowing that I am empty and awake, and that there's no difference between me and anything else. It means that I have attained to that which everything is.

47The-Attainer-To-That-Which-Every thing-Is, the Sanskrit Tathagata, has no ideas whatever but abides in essence identically with the essence of all things, which is what it is, in emptiness and silence. Imaginary meaning stretched to make mountains and as far as the germ is concerned it stretched even further to make molehills. A million souls dropped through hell but nobody saw them or counted them. A lot of large people isnt really a lot of large people, it's only the golden eternity. When St. Francis went to heaven he did not add to heaven nor detract from earth. Locate silence, possess space, spot me the ego. 'From the beginning,' said the Sixth Patriarch of the China School, 'not a thing is.'

48He who loves all life with his pity and intelligence isnt really he who loves all life with his pity and intelligence, it's only natural. The universe is fully known because it is ignored. Enlightenment comes when you dont care. This is a good tree stump I'm sitting on. You cant even grasp your own pain let alone your eternal reward. I love you because you're me. I love you because there's nothing else to do. It's just the natural golden eternity.

49What does it mean that those trees and mountains are magic and unreal?- It means that those trees and mountains are magic and unreal. What does it mean that those trees and mountains are not magic but real?- it means that those trees and mountains are not magic but real. Men are just making imaginary judgments both ways, and all the time it's just the same natural golden eternity.

50If the golden eternity was anything other than mere words, you could not have said 'golden eternity.' This means that the words are used to point at the endless nothingness of reality. If the endless nothingness of reality was anything other than mere words, you could not have said 'endless nothingness of reality,' you could not have said it. This means that the golden eternity is out of our word-reach, it refuses steadfastly to be described, it runs away from us and leads us in. The name is not really the name. The same way, you could not have said 'this world' if this world was anything other than mere words. There's nothing there but just that. They've long known that there's nothing to life but just the living of it. It Is What It Is and That's All It Is.

51There's no system of teaching and no reward for teaching the golden eternity, because nothing has happened. In the golden eternity teaching and reward havent even vanished let alone appeared. The golden eternity doesnt even have to be perfect. It is very silly of me to talk about it. I talk about it simply because here I am dreaming that I talk about it in a dream already ended, ages ago, from which I'm already awake, and it was only an empty dreaming, in fact nothing whatever, in fact nothing ever happened at all. The beauty of attaining the golden eternity is that nothing will be acquired, at last.

52Kindness and sympathy, understanding and encouragement, these give: they are better than just presents and gifts: no reason in the world why not. Anyhow, be nice. Remember the golden eternity is yourself. 'If someone will simply practice kindness,' said Gotama to Subhuti, 'he will soon attain highest perfect wisdom.' Then he added: 'Kindness after all is only a word and it should be done on the spot without thought of kindness.' By practicing kindness all over with everyone you will soon come into the holy trance, infinite distinctions of personalities will become what they really mysteriously are, our common and eternal blissstuff, the pureness of everything forever, the great bright essence of mind, even and one thing everywhere the holy eternal milky love, the white light everywhere everything, emptybliss, svaha, shining, ready, and awake, the compassion in the sound of silence, the swarming myriad trillionaire you are.

53Everything's alright, form is emptiness and emptiness is form, and we're here forever, in one form or another, which is empty. Everything's alright, we're not here, there, or anywhere. Everything's alright, cats sleep.

54The everlasting and tranquil essence, look around and see the smiling essence everywhere. How wily was the world made, Maya, not-even-made.

55There's the world in the daylight. If it was completely dark you wouldnt see it but it would still be there. If you close your eyes you really see what it's like: mysterious particle-swarming emptiness. On the moon big mosquitos of straw know this in the kindness of their hearts. Truly speaking, unrecognizably sweet it all is. Don't worry about nothing.

56Imaginary judgments about things, in the Nothing-Ever-Happened wonderful void, you dont even have to reject them, let alone accept them. 'That looks like a tree, let's call it a tree,' said Coyote to Earthmaker at the beginning, and they walked around the rootdrinker patting their bellies.

57Perfectly selfless, the beauty of it, the butterfly doesnt take it as a personal achievement, he just disappears through the trees. You too, kind and humble and not-even-here, it wasnt in a greedy mood that you saw the light that belongs to everybody.

58Look at your little finger, the emptiness of it is no different than the emptiness of infinity.

59Cats yawn because they realize that there's nothing to do.

60Up in heaven you wont remember all these tricks of yours. You wont even sigh 'Why?' Whether as atomic dust or as great cities, what's the difference in all this stuff. A tree is still only a rootdrinker. The puma's twisted face continues to look at the blue sky with sightless eyes, Ah sweet divine and indescribable verdurous paradise planted in mid-air! Caitanya, it's only consciousness. Not with thoughts of your mind, but in the believing sweetness of your heart, you snap the link and open the golden door and disappear into the bright room, the everlasting ecstasy, eternal Now. Soldier, follow me! - there never was a war. Arjuna, dont fight! - why fight over nothing? Bless and sit down.

61I remember that I'm supposed to be a man and consciousness and I focus my eyes and the print reappears and the words of the poor book are saying, 'The world, as God has made it' and there are no words in my pitying heart to express the knowless loveliness of the trance there was before I read those words, I had no such idea that there was a world.

62This world has no marks, signs, or evidence of existence, nor the noises in it, like accident of wind or voices or heehawing animals, yet listen closely the eternal hush of silence goes on and on throughout all this, and has been gong on, and will go on and on. This is because the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought of and the everlasting eternity pays no attention to it. At night under the moon, or in a quiet room, hush now, the secret music of the Unborn goes on and on, beyond conception, awake beyond existence. Properly speaking, awake is not really awake because the golden eternity never went to sleep; you can tell by the constant sound of Silence which cuts through this world like a magic diamond through the trick of your not realizing that your mind caused the world.

63The God of the American Plateau Indian was Coyote. He says: 'Earth! those beings living on your surface, none of them disappearing, will all be transformed. When I have spoken to them, when they have spoken to me, from that moment on, their words and their bodies which they usually use to move about with, will all change. I will not have heard them.'

64I was smelling flowers in the yard, and when I stood up I took a deep breath and the blood all rushed to my brain and I woke up dead on my back in the grass. I had apparently fainted, or died, for about sixty seconds. My neighbor saw me but he thought I had just suddenly thrown myself on the grass to enjoy the sun. During that timeless moment of unconsciousness I saw the golden eternity. I saw heaven. In it nothing had ever happened, the events of a million years ago were just as phantom and ungraspable as the events of now, or the events of the next ten minutes. It was perfect, the golden solitude, the golden emptiness, Something-Or- Other, something surely humble. There was a rapturous ring of silence abiding perfectly. There was no question of being alive or not being alive, of likes and dislikes, of near or far, no question of giving or gratitude, no question of mercy or judgment, or of suffering or its opposite or anything. It was the womb itself, aloneness, alaya vijnana the universal store, the Great Free Treasure, the Great Victory, infinite completion, the joyful mysterious essence of Arrangement. It seemed like one smiling smile, one adorable adoration, one gracious and adorable charity, everlasting safety, refreshing afternoon, roses, infinite brilliant immaterial gold ash, the Golden Age. The 'golden' came from the sun in my eyelids, and the 'eternity' from my sudden instant realization as I woke up that I had just been where it all came from and where it was all returning, the everlasting So, and so never coming or going; therefore I call it the golden eternity but you can call it anything you want. As I regained consciousness I felt so sorry I had a body and a mind suddenly realizing I didn't even have a body and a mind and nothing had ever happened and everything is alright forever and forever and forever, O thank you thank you thank you.

65This is the first teaching from the golden eternity.

66The second teaching from the golden eternity is that there never was a first teaching from the golden eternity. So be sure.

The Loves of the Angels

'Twas when the world was in its prime,When the fresh stars had just begunTheir race of glory and young TimeTold his first birth-days by the sun;When in the light of Nature's dawnRejoicing, men and angels metOn the high hill and sunny lawn,-Ere sorrow came or Sin had drawn'Twixt man and heaven her curtain yet!When earth lay nearer to the skiesThan in these days of crime and woe,And mortals saw without surpriseIn the mid-air angelic eyesGazing upon this world below.

Alas! that Passion should profaneEven then the morning of the earth!That, sadder still, the fatal stainShould fall on hearts of heavenly birth-And that from Woman's love should fallSo dark a stain, most sad of all!

One evening, in that primal hour,On a hill's side where hung the rayOf sunset brightening rill and bower,Three noble youths conversing lay;And, as they lookt from time to timeTo the far sky where Daylight furledHis radiant wing, their brows sublimeBespoke them of that distant world-Spirits who once in brotherhoodOf faith and bliss near ALLA stood,And o'er whose cheeks full oft had blownThe wind that breathes from ALLA'S throne,Creatures of light such as still play,Like motes in sunshine, round the Lord,And thro' their infinite arrayTransmit each moment, night and day,The echo of His luminous word!

Of Heaven they spoke and, still more oft,Of the bright eyes that charmed them thence;Till yielding gradual to the softAnd balmy evening's influence-The silent breathing of the flowers-The melting light that beamed above,As on their first, fond, erring hours,-Each told the story of his love,The history of that hour unblest,When like a bird from its high nestWon down by fascinating eyes,For Woman's smile he lost the skies.

The First who spoke was one, with lookThe least celestial of the three-A Spirit of light mould that tookThe prints of earth most yieldingly;Who even in heaven was not of thoseNearest the Throne but held a placeFar off among those shining rowsThat circle out thro' endless space,And o'er whose wings the light from HimIn Heaven's centre falls most dim.

Still fair and glorious, he but shoneAmong those youths the unheavenliest one-A creature to whom light remainedFrom Eden still, but altered, stained,And o'er whose brow not Love aloneA blight had in his transit cast,But other, earthlier joys had gone,And left their foot-prints as they past.Sighing, as back thro' ages flown,Like a tomb-searcher, Memory ran,Lifting each shroud that Time had thrownO'er buried hopes, he thus began:-

First Angel's Story

'Twas in a land that far awayInto the golden orient lies,Where Nature knows not night's delay,But springs to meet her bridegroom, Day,Upon the threshold of the skies,One morn, on earthly mission sent,And mid-way choosing where to light,I saw from the blue element-Oh beautiful, but fatal sight!-One of earth's fairest womankind,Half veiled from view, or rather shrinedIn the clear crystal of a brook;Which while it hid no single gleamOf her young beauties made them lookMore spirit-like, as they might seemThro' the dim shadowing of a dream.Pausing in wonder I lookt on,While playfully around her breakingThe waters that like diamonds shoneShe moved in light of her own making.At length as from that airy heightI gently lowered my breathless flight,The tremble of my wings all o'er(For thro' each plume I felt the thrill)Startled her as she reached the shoreOf that small lake-her mirror still-Above whose brink she stood, like snowWhen rosy with a sunset glow,Never shall I forget those eyes!-The shame, the innocent surpriseOf that bright face when in the airUplooking she beheld me there.It seemed as if each thought and lookAnd motion were that minute chainedFast to the spot, such root she took,And-like a sunflower by a brook,With face upturned-so still remained!

In pity to the wondering maid,Tho' loath from such a vision turning,Downward I bent, beneath the shadeOf my spread wings to hide the burningOf glances, which-I well could feel-For me, for her, too warmly shone;But ere I could again unsealMy restless eyes or even stealOne sidelong look the maid was gone-Hid from me in the forest leaves,Sudden as when in all her charmsOf full-blown light some cloud receivesThe Moon into his dusky arms.

'Tis not in words to tell the power,The despotism that from that hourPassion held o'er me. Day and nightI sought around each neighboring spot;And in the chase of this sweet light,My task and heaven and all forgot;-All but the one, sole, haunting dreamOf her I saw in that bright stream.

Nor was it long ere by her sideI found myself whole happy daysListening to words whose music viedWith our own Eden's seraph lays,When seraph lays are warmed by love,But wanting that far, far above!-And looking into eyes where, blueAnd beautiful, like skies seen thro'The sleeping wave, for me there shoneA heaven, more worshipt than my own.Oh what, while I could hear and seeSuch words and looks, was heaven to me?

Tho' gross the air on earth I drew,'Twas blessed, while she breathed it too;Tho' dark the flowers, tho' dim the sky,Love lent them light while she was nigh.Throughout creation I but knewTwo separate worlds-the one, that small,Beloved and consecrated spotWhere LEA was-the other, allThe dull, wide waste where she was not!

But vain my suit, my madness vain;Tho' gladly, from her eyes to gainOne earthly look, one stray desire,I would have torn the wings that hungFurled at my back and o'er the FireIn GEHIM'S pit their fragments flung;-'Twas hopeless all-pure and unmovedShe stood as lilies in the lightOf the hot noon but look more white;-And tho' she loved me, deeply loved,'Twas not as man, as mortal-no,Nothing of earth was in that glow-She loved me but as one, of raceAngelic, from that radiant placeShe saw so oft in dreams-that HeavenTo which her prayers at morn were sentAnd on whose light she gazed at even,Wishing for wings that she might goOut of this shadowy world belowTo that free, glorious element!

Well I remember by her sideSitting at rosy even-tide,When,-turning to the star whose headLookt out as from a bridal bed,At that mute, blushing hour,-she said,'Oh! that it were my doom to be'The Spirit of yon beauteous star,'Dwelling up there in purity,'Alone as all such bright things are;-'My sole employ to pray and shine,'To light my censer at the sun,'And cast its fire towards the shrine'Of Him in heaven, the Eternal One!'

So innocent the maid, so freeFrom mortal taint in soul and frame,Whom 'twas my crime-my destiny-To love, ay, burn for, with a flameTo which earth's wildest fires are tame.Had you but seen her look when firstFrom my mad lips the avowal burst;Not angered-no!-the feeling cameFrom depths beyond mere anger's flame-It was a sorrow calm as deep,A mournfulness that could not weep,So filled her heart was to the brink,So fixt and frozen with grief to thinkThat angel natures-that even IWhose love she clung to, as the tieBetween her spirit and the sky-Should fall thus headlong from the heightOf all that heaven hath pure and bright!

That very night-my heart had grownImpatient of its inward burning;The term, too, of my stay was flown,And the bright Watchers near the throne.Already, if a meteor shoneBetween them and this nether zone,Thought 'twas their herald's wing returning.Oft did the potent spell-word, givenTo Envoys hither from the skies,To be pronounced when back to heavenIt is their time or wish to rise,Come to my lips that fatal day;And once too was so nearly spoken,That my spread plumage in the rayAnd breeze of heaven began to play;-When my heart failed-the spell was broken-The word unfinisht died away,And my checkt plumes ready to soar,Fell slack and lifeless as before.How could I leave a world which she,Or lost or won, made all to me?No matter where my wanderings were,So there she lookt, breathed, moved about-Woe, ruin, death, more sweet with her,Than Paradise itself, without!

But to return-that very dayA feast was held, where, full of mirth,Came-crowding thick as flowers that playIn summer winds-the young and gayAnd beautiful of this bright earth.And she was there and mid the youngAnd beautiful stood first, alone;Tho' on her gentle brow still hungThe shadow I that morn had thrown-The first that ever shame or woeHad cast upon its vernal snow.My heart was maddened;-in the flushOf the wild revel I gave wayTo all that frantic mirth-that rushOf desperate gayety which they,Who never felt how pain's excessCan break out thus, think happiness!Sad mimicry of mirth and lifeWhose flashes come but from the strifeOf inward passions-like the lightStruck out by clashing swords in fight.

Then too that juice of earth, the baneAnd blessing of man's heart and brain-That draught of sorcery which bringsPhantoms of fair, forbidden things-Whose drops like those of rainbows smileUpon the mists that circle man,Brightening not only Earth the while,But grasping Heaven too in their span!-Then first the fatal wine-cup rainedIts dews of darkness thro' my lips,Casting whate'er of light remainedTo my lost soul into eclipse;And filling it with such wild dreams,Such fantasies and wrong desires,As in the absence of heaven's beamsHaunt us for ever-like wildfiresThat walk this earth when day retires.

Now hear the rest;-our banquet done,I sought her in the accustomed bower,Where late we oft, when day was goneAnd the world husht, had met alone,At the same silent, moonlight hour.Her eyes as usual were upturnedTo her loved star whose lustre burnedPurer than ever on that night;While she in looking grew more brightAs tho' she borrowed of its light.

There was a virtue in that scene,A spell of holiness around,Which had my burning brain not beenThus maddened would have held me bound,As tho' I trod celestial ground.Even as it was, with soul all flameAnd lips that burned in their own sighs,I stood to gaze with awe and shame-The memory of Eden cameFull o'er me when I saw those eyes;And tho' too well each glance of mineTo the pale, shrinking maiden provedHow far, alas! from aught divine,Aught worthy of so pure a shrine,Was the wild love with which I loved,Yet must she, too, have seen-oh yes,'Tis soothing but to think she sawThe deep, true, soul-felt tenderness,The homage of an Angel's aweTo her, a mortal, whom pure loveThen placed above him-far above-And all that struggle to repressA sinful spirit's mad excess,Which workt within me at that hour,When with a voice where Passion shedAll the deep sadness of her power,Her melancholy power-I said,'Then be it so; if back to heaven'I must unloved, unpitied fly.'Without one blest memorial given'To soothe me in that lonely sky;'One look like those the young and fond'Give when they're parting-which would be,'Even in remembrance far beyond'All heaven hath left of bliss for me!

'Oh, but to see that head recline'A minute on this trembling arm,'And those mild eyes look up to mine,'Without a dread, a thought of harm!'To meet but once the thrilling touch'Of lips too purely fond to fear me-'Or if that boon be all too much,'Even thus to bring their fragrance near me!'Nay, shrink not so-a look-a word-'Give them but kindly and I fly;'Already, see, my plumes have stirred'And tremble for their home on high.'Thus be our parting-cheek to cheek-'One minute's lapse will be forgiven,'And thou, the next, shalt hear me speak'The spell that plumes my wing for heaven!'

While thus I spoke, the fearful maid,Of me and of herself afraid,Had shrinking stood like flowers beneathThe scorching of the south-wind's breath:But when I named-alas, too well,I now recall, tho' wildered then,-Instantly, when I named the spellHer brow, her eyes uprose again;And with an eagerness that spokeThe sudden light that o'er her broke,'The spell, the spell!-oh, speak it now.'And I will bless thee!' she exclaimed-Unknowing what I did, inflamed,And lost already, on her browI stampt one burning kiss, and namedThe mystic word till then ne'er toldTo living creature of earth's mould!Scarce was it said when quick a thought,Her lips from mine like echo caughtThe holy sound-her hands and eyesWere instant lifted to the skies,And thrice to heaven she spoke it outWith that triumphant look Faith wears,When not a cloud of fear or doubt,A vapor from this vale of tears.Between her and her God appears!That very moment her whole frameAll bright and glorified became,And at her back I saw uncloseTwo wings magnificent as thoseThat sparkle around ALLA'S Throne,Whose plumes, as buoyantly she roseAbove me, in the moon-beam shoneWith a pure light; which-from its hue,Unknown upon this earth-I knewWas light from Eden, glistening thro'!Most holy vision! ne'er beforeDid aught so radiant-since the dayWhen EBLIS in his downfall, boreThe third of the bright stars away-Rise in earth's beauty to repairThat loss of light and glory there!

But did I tamely view her flight?Did not I too proclaim out thriceThe powerful words that were that night,-Oh even for heaven too much delight!-Again to bring us, eyes to eyesAnd soul to soul, in Paradise?I did-I spoke it o'er and o'er-I prayed, I wept, but all in vain;For me the spell had power no more.There seemed around me some dark chainWhich still as I essayed to soarBaffled, alas, each wild endeavor;Dead lay my wings as they have lainSince that sad hour and will remain-So wills the offended God-for ever!

It was to yonder star I tracedHer journey up the illumined waste-That isle in the blue firmamentTo which so oft her fancy wentIn wishes and in dreams before,And which was now-such, Purity,Thy blest reward-ordained to beHer home of light for evermore!Once-or did I but fancy so?-Even in her flight to that fair sphere,Mid all her spirit's new-felt glow,A pitying look she turned belowOn him who stood in darkness here;Him whom perhaps if vain regretCan dwell in heaven she pities yet;And oft when looking to this dimAnd distant world remembers him.

But soon that passing dream was gone;Farther and farther off she shone,Till lessened to a point as smallAs are those specks that yonder burn,-Those vivid drops of light that fallThe last from Day's exhausted urn.And when at length she merged, afar,Into her own immortal star,And when at length my straining sightHad caught her wing's last fading ray,That minute from my soul the lightOf heaven and love both past away;And I forgot my home, my birth,Profaned my spirit, sunk my brow,And revelled in gross joys of earthTill I became-what I am now!

The Spirit bowed his head in shame;A shame that of itself would tell-Were there not even those breaks of flame,Celestial, thro' his clouded frame-How grand the height from which he fell!That holy Shame which ne'er forgetsThe unblenched renown it used to wear;Whose blush remains when Virtue setsTo show her sunshine has been there.

Once only while the tale he toldWere his eyes lifted to beholdThat happy stainless, star where sheDwelt in her bower of purity!One minute did he look and then-As tho' he felt some deadly painFrom its sweet light thro' heart and brain-Shrunk back and never lookt again.

Who was the Second Spirit? heWith the proud front and piercing glance-Who seemed when viewing heaven's expanseAs tho' his far-sent eye could seeOn, on into the ImmensityBehind the veils of that blue skyWhere ALLA'S grandest secrets lie?-His wings, the while, tho' day was gone,Flashing with many a various hueOf light they from themselves alone,Instinct with Eden's brightness drew.'Twas RUBI-once among the primeAnd flower of those bright creatures, namedSpirits of Knowledge, who o'er TimeAnd Space and Thought an empire claimed,Second alone to Him whose lightWas even to theirs as day to night;'Twixt whom and them was distance farAnd wide as would the journey beTo reach from any island starTo vague shores of Infinity

'Twas RUBI in whose mournful eyeSlept the dim light of days gone by;Whose voice tho' sweet fell on the earLike echoes in some silent placeWhen first awaked for many a year;And when he smiled, if o'er his faceSmile ever shone, 'twas like the graceOf moonlight rainbows, fair, but wan,The sunny life, the glory gone.Even o'er his pride tho' still the same,A softening shade from sorrow came;And tho' at times his spirit knewThe kindlings of disdain and ire,Short was the fitful glare they threw-Like the last flashes, fierce but few,Seen thro' some noble pile on fire!Such was the Angel who now brokeThe silence that had come o'er all,When he the Spirit that last spokeClosed the sad history of his fall;And while a sacred lustre flownFor many a day relumed his cheek-Beautiful as in days of old;And not those eloquent lips aloneBut every feature seemed to speak-Thus his eventful story told:-

Second Angel's Story

You both remember well the dayWhen unto Eden's new-made bowersALLA convoked the bright arrayOf his supreme angelic powersTo witness the one wonder yet,Beyond man, angel, star, or sun,He must achieve, ere he could setHis seal upon the world as done-To see the last perfection rise,That crowning of creation's birth,When mid the worship and surpriseOf circling angels Woman's eyesFirst open upon heaven and earth;And from their lids a thrill was sent,That thro' each living spirit wentLike first light thro' the firmament!

Can you forget how gradual stoleThe fresh-awakened breath of soulThroughout her perfect form-which seemedTo grow transparent as there beamedThat dawn of Mind within and caughtNew loveliness from each new thought?Slow as o'er summer seas we traceThe progress of the noontide air,Dimpling its bright and silent faceEach minute into some new grace,And varying heaven's reflections there-Or like the light of evening stealingO'er some fair temple which all dayHath slept in shadow, slow revealingIts several beauties ray by ray,Till it shines out, a thing to bless,All full of light and loveliness.

Can you forget her blush when roundThro' Eden's lone, enchanted groundShe lookt, and saw the sea-the skies-And heard the rush of many a wing,On high behests then vanishing;And saw the last few angel eyes,Still lingering-mine among the rest,-Reluctant leaving scenes so blest?From that miraculous hour the fateOf this new, glorious Being dweltFor ever with a spell-like weightUpon my spirit-early, late,Whate'er I did or dreamed or felt,The thought of what might yet befallThat matchless creature mixt with all.-Nor she alone but her whole raceThro' ages yet to come-whate'erOf feminine and fond and fairShould spring from that pure mind and face,All waked my soul's intensest care;Their forms, souls, feelings, still to meCreation's strangest mystery!

It was my doom-even from the first,When witnessing the primal burstOf Nature's wonders, I saw riseThose bright creations in the skies,-Those worlds instinct with life and light,Which Man, remote, but sees by night,-It was my doom still to be hauntedBy some new wonder, some sublimeAnd matchless work, that for the timeHeld all my soul enchained, enchanted,And left me not a thought, a dream,A word but on that only theme!

The wish to know-that endless thirst,Which even by quenching is awaked,And which becomes or blest or curstAs is the fount whereat 'tis slaked-Still urged me onward with desireInsatiate, to explore, inquire-Whate'er the wondrous things might beThat waked each new idolatry-Their cause, aim, source, whenever sprung-Their inmost powers, as tho' for meExistence on that knowledge hung.

Oh what a vision were the starsWhen first I saw them born on high,Rolling along like living carsOf light for gods to journey by!They were like my heart's first passion-daysAnd nights unwearied, in their raysHave I hung floating till each senseSeemed full of their bright influence.Innocent joy! alas, how muchOf misery had I shunned below,Could I have still lived blest with such;Nor, proud and restless, burned to knowThe knowledge that brings guilt and woe.

Often-so much I loved to traceThe secrets of this starry race-Have I at morn and evening runAlong the lines of radiance spunLike webs between them and the sun,Untwisting all the tangled tiesOf light into their different dyes-The fleetly winged I off in questOf those, the farthest, loneliest,That watch like winking sentinels,The void, beyond which Chaos dwells;And there with noiseless plume pursuedTheir track thro' that grand solitude,Asking intently all and eachWhat soul within their radiance dwelt,And wishing their sweet light were speech,That they might tell me all they felt.

Nay, oft, so passionate my chase,Of these resplendent heirs of space,Oft did I follow-lest a rayShould 'scape me in the farthest night-Some pilgrim Comet on his wayTo visit distant shrines of light,And well remember how I sungExultingly when on my sightNew worlds of stars all fresh and youngAs if just born of darkness sprung!

Such was my pure ambition then,My sinless transport night and mornEre yet this newer world of men,And that most fair of stars was bornWhich I in fatal hour saw riseAmong the flowers of Paradise!

Thenceforth my nature all was changed,My heart, soul, senses turned below;And he who but so lately rangedYon wonderful expanse where glowWorlds upon worlds,-yet found his mindEven in that luminous range confined,-Now blest the humblest, meanest sodOf the dark earth where Woman trod!In vain my former idols glistenedFrom their far thrones; in vain these earsTo the once-thrilling music listened,That hymned around my favorite spheres-To earth, to earth each thought was given,That in this half-lost soul had birth;Like some high mount, whose head's in heavenWhile its whole shadow rests on earth!

Nor was it Love, even yet, that thralledMy spirit in his burning ties;And less, still less could it be calledThat grosser flame, round which Love fliesNearer and near till he dies-No, it was wonder, such as thrilledAt all God's works my dazzled sense;The same rapt wonder, only filledWith passion, more profound, intense,-A vehement, but wandering fire,Which, tho' nor love, nor yet desire,-Tho' thro' all womankind it tookIts range, its lawless lightnings run,Yet wanted but a touch, a look,To fix it burning upon One.

Then too the ever-restless zeal,The insatiate curiosity,To know how shapes so fair must feel-To look but once beneath the sealOf so much loveliness and seeWhat souls belonged to such bright eyes-Whether as sunbeams find their wayInto the gem that hidden lies,Those looks could inward turn their ray,And make the soul as bright as they:All this impelled my anxious chase.And still the more I saw and knewOf Woman's fond, weak, conquering race,The intenser still my wonder grew.I had beheld their First, their EVE,Born in that splendid Paradise,Which sprung there solely to receiveThe first light of her waking eyes.I had seen purest angels leanIn worship o'er her from above;And man-oh yes, had envying seenProud man possest of all her love.

I saw their happiness, so brief,So exquisite,-her error, too,That easy trust, that prompt beliefIn what the warm heart wishes true;That faith in words, when kindly said.By which the whole fond sex is ledMingled with-what I durst not blame,For 'tis my own-that zeal to know,Sad, fatal zeal, so sure of woe;Which, tho' from heaven all pure it came,Yet stained, misused, brought sin and shameOn her, on me, on all below!

I had seen this; had seen Man, armedAs his soul is with strength and sense,By her first words to ruin charmed;His vaunted reason's cold defence,Like an ice-barrier in the rayOf melting summer, smiled away.Nay, stranger yet, spite of all this-Tho' by her counsels taught to err,Tho' driven from Paradise for her,(And with her-that at least was bliss,)Had I not heard him ere he crostThe threshold of that earthly heaven,Which by her bewildering smile he lost-So quickly was the wrong forgiven-Had I not heard him, as he prestThe frail, fond trembler to a breastWhich she had doomed to sin and strife,Call her-even then-his Life! his Life!Yes, such a love-taught name, the first,That ruined Man to Woman gave,Even in his outcast hour, when curstBy her fond witchery, with that worstAnd earliest boon of love, the grave!She who brought death into the worldThere stood before him, with the lightOf their lost Paradise still brightUpon those sunny locks that curledDown her white shoulders to her feet-So beautiful in form, so sweetIn heart and voice, as to redeemThe loss, the death of all things dear,Except herself-and make it seemLife, endless Life, while she was near!Could I help wondering at a creature,Thus circled round with spells so strong-One to whose every thought, word, feature.In joy and woe, thro' right and wrong,Such sweet omnipotence heaven gave,To bless or ruin, curse or save?

Nor did the marvel cease with her-New Eves in all her daughters came,As strong to charm, as weak to err,As sure of man thro' praise and blame,Whate'er they brought him, pride or shame,He still the unreasoning worshipper,And they, throughout all time, the sameEnchantresses of soul and frame,Into whose hands, from first to last,This world with all its destinies,Devotedly by heaven seems cast,To save or ruin as they please!Oh! 'tis not to be told how long,How restlessly I sighed to findSome one from out that witching throng,Some abstract of the form and mindOf the whole matchless sex, from which,In my own arms beheld, possest,I might learn all the powers to witch,To warm, and (if my fate unblestWould have it) ruin, of the rest!Into whose inward soul and sense,I might descend, as doth the beeInto the flower's deep heart, and thenceRifle in all its purityThe prime, the quintessence, the wholeOf wondrous Woman's frame and soul!At length my burning wish, my prayer-(For such-oh! what will tongues not dare,When hearts go wrong?-this lip preferred)-At length my ominous prayer was heard-But whether heard in heaven or hell,Listen-and thou wilt know too well.

There was a maid, of all who moveLike visions o'er this orb most fit.To be a bright young angel's love-Herself so bright, so exquisite!The pride too of her step, as lightAlong the unconscious earth she went,Seemed that of one born with a rightTo walk some heavenlier element,And tread in places where her feetA star at every step should meet.'Twas not alone that lovelinessBy which the wildered sense is caught-Of lips whose very breath could bless;Of playful blushes that seemed naughtBut luminous escapes of thought;Of eyes that, when by anger stirred,Were fire itself, but at a wordOf tenderness, all soft becameAs tho' they could, like the sun's bird,Dissolve away in their own flame-Of form, as pliant as the shootsOf a young tree, in vernal flower;Yet round and glowing as the fruits,That drop from it in summer's hour;-'Twas not alone this lovelinessThat falls to loveliest women's share,Tho' even here her form could spareFrom its own beauty's rich excessEnough to make even them more fair-But 'twas the Mind outshining clearThro' her whole frame-the soul, still near,To light each charm, yet independentOf what it lighted, as the sunThat shines on flowers would be resplendentWere there no flowers to shine upon-'Twas this, all this, in one combined-The unnumbered looks and arts that formThe glory of young womankind,Taken, in their perfection, warm,Ere time had chilled a single charm,And stampt with such a seal of Mind,As gave to beauties that might beToo sensual else, too unrefined,The impress of Divinity!

'Twas this-a union, which the handOf Nature kept for her alone,Of every thing most playful, bland,Voluptuous, spiritual, grand,In angel-natures and her own-Oh! this it was that drew me nighOne, who seemed kin to heaven as I,A bright twin-sister from on high-One in whose love, I felt, were givenThe mixt delights of either sphere,All that the spirit seeks in heaven,And all the senses burn for here.

Had we-but hold!-hear every partOf our sad tale-spite of the painRemembrance gives, when the fixt dartIs stirred thus in the wound again-Hear every step, so full of bliss,And yet so ruinous, that ledDown to the last, dark precipice,Where perisht both-the fallen, the dead!

From the first hour she caught my sight,I never left her-day and nightHovering unseen around her way,And mid her loneliest musings near,I soon could track each thought that lay,Gleaming within her heart, as clearAs pebbles within brooks appear;And there among the countless thingsThat keep young hearts for ever glowing-Vague wishes, fond imaginings,Love-dreams, as yet no object knowing-Light, winged hopes that come when bid,And rainbow joys that end in weeping;And passions among pure thoughts hid,Like serpents under flowerets sleeping:-'Mong all these feelings-felt where'erYoung hearts are beating-I saw thereProud thoughts, aspirings high-beyondWhate'er yet dwelt in soul so fond-Glimpses of glory, far awayInto the bright, vague future given;And fancies, free and grand, whose play,Like that of eaglets, is near heaven!With this, too-what a soul and heartTo fall beneath the tempter's art!-A zeal for knowledge, such as ne'erEnshrined itself in form so fair,Since that first, fatal hour, when Eve,With every fruit of Eden blestSave one alone-rather than leaveThat one unreached, lost all the rest.

It was in dreams that first I stoleWith gentle mastery o'er her mind-In that rich twilight of the soul,When reason's beam, half hid behindThe clouds of sleep, obscurely gildsEach shadowy shape that Fancy builds-'Twas then by that soft light I broughtVague, glimmering visions to her view,-Catches of radiance lost when caught,Bright labyrinths that led to naught,And vistas with no pathway thro';-Dwellings of bliss that opening shone,Then closed, dissolved, and left no trace-All that, in short, could tempt Hope on,But give her wing no resting-place;Myself the while with brow as yetPure as the young moon's coronet,Thro' every dream still in her sight.The enchanter of each mocking scene,Who gave the hope, then brought the blight,Who said, 'Behold yon world of light,'Then sudden dropt a veil between!

At length when I perceived each thought,Waking or sleeping, fixt on naughtBut these illusive scenes and me-The phantom who thus came and went,In half revealments, only meantTo madden curiosity-When by such various arts I foundHer fancy to its utmost wound.One night-'twas in a holy spotWhich she for prayer had chosen-a grotOf purest marble built belowHer garden beds, thro' which a glowFrom lamps invisible then stole,Brightly pervading all the place-Like that mysterious light the soul,Itself unseen, sheds thro' the face.There at her altar while she knelt,And all that woman ever felt,When God and man both claimed her sighs-Every warm thought, that ever dwelt,Like summer clouds, 'twixt earth and skies,Too pure to fall, too gross to rise,Spoke in her gestures, tones, and eyes-Then, as the mystic light's soft rayGrew softer still, as tho' its rayWas breathed from her, I heard her say:-

Exhausted, breathless, as she saidThese burning words, her languid headUpon the altar's steps she cast,As if that brain-throb were its last--

Till, startled by the breathing, nigh,Of lips that echoed back her sigh,Sudden her brow again she raised;And there, just lighted on the shrine,Beheld me-not as I had blazedAround her, full of light divine,In her late dreams, but softened downInto more mortal grace;-my crownOf flowers, too radiant for this world,Left hanging on yon starry steep;My wings shut up, like banners furled,When Peace hath put their pomp to sleep;Or like autumnal clouds that keepTheir lightnings sheathed rather than marThe dawning hour of some young star;And nothing left but what beseemedThe accessible, tho' glorious mateOf mortal woman-whose eyes beamedBack upon hers, as passionate;Whose ready heart brought flame for flame,Whose sin, whose madness was the same;And whose soul lost in that one hourFor her and for her love-oh moreOf heaven's light than even the powerOf heaven itself could now restore!And yet, that hour!-

The Spirit hereStopt in his utterance as if wordsGave way beneath the wild careerOf his then rushing thoughts-like chords,Midway in some enthusiast's song,Breaking beneath a touch too strong;While the clenched hand upon the browTold how remembrance throbbed there now!But soon 'twas o'er-that casual blazeFrom the sunk fire of other days-That relic of a flame whose burningHad been too fierce to be relumed,Soon passt away, and the youth turningTo his bright listeners thus resumed:-

Days, months elapsed, and, tho' what mostOn earth I sighed for was mine, all-Yet-was I happy? God, thou know'st,Howe'er they smile and feign and boast,What happiness is theirs, who fall!'Twas bitterest anguish-made more keenEven by the love, the bliss, betweenWhose throbs it came, like gleams of hellIn agonizing cross-light givenAthwart the glimpses, they who dwellIn purgatory catch of heaven!The only feeling that to meSeemed joy-or rather my sole restFrom aching misery-was to seeMy young, proud, blooming LILIS blest.She, the fair fountain of all illTo my lost soul-whom yet its thirstFervidly panted after still,And found the charm fresh as at first-To see her happy-to reflectWhatever beams still round me playedOf former pride, of glory wreckt,On her, my Moon, whose light I made,And whose soul worshipt even my shade-This was, I own, enjoyment-thisMy sole, last lingering glimpse of bliss.And proud she was, fair creature!-proud,Beyond what even most queenly stirsIn woman's heart, nor would have bowedThat beautiful young brow of hersTo aught beneath the First above,So high she deemed her Cherub's love!

Then too that passion hourly growingStronger and stronger-to which evenHer love at times gave way-of knowingEverything strange in earth and heaven;Not only all that, full revealed,The eternal ALLA loves to show,But all that He hath wisely sealedIn darkness for man not to know-Even this desire, alas! ill-starredAnd fatal as it was, I soughtTo feed each minute, and unbarredSuch realms of wonder on her thoughtAs ne'er till then had let their lightEscape on any mortal's sight!

In the deep earth-beneath the sea-Thro' caves of fire-thro' wilds of air-Wherever sleeping MysteryHad spread her curtain, we were there-Love still beside us as we went,At home in each new elementAnd sure of worship everywhere!

Then first was Nature taught to layThe wealth of all her kingdoms downAt woman's worshipt feet and say'Bright creature, this is all thine own!'Then first were diamonds from the night,Of earth's deep centre brought to lightAnd made to grace the conquering wayOf proud young beauty with their ray.

Then too the pearl from out its shellUnsightly, in the sunless sea,(As 'twere a spirit, forced to dwellIn form unlovely) was set free,And round the neck of woman threwA light it lent and borrowed too.For never did this maid-whate'erThe ambition of the hour-forgetHer sex's pride in being fair;Nor that adornment, tasteful, rare,Which makes the mighty magnet, setIn Woman's form, more mighty yet.Nor was there aught within the rangeOf my swift wing in sea or air,Of beautiful or grand or strange,That, quickly as her wish could change,I did not seek, with such fond care,That when I've seen her look aboveAt some bright star admiringly,I've said, 'Nay, look not there, my love,'Alas, I cannot give it thee!'

But not alone the wonders foundThro' Nature's realm-the unveiled, material,Visible glories, that aboundThro' all her vast, enchanted ground-But whatsoe'er unseen, ethereal,Dwells far away from human sense,Wrapt in its own intelligence-The mystery of that Fountainhead,From which all vital spirit runs,All breath of Life, where'er 'tis spreadThro' men or angels, flowers or suns-The workings of the Almighty Mind,When first o'er Chaos he designedThe outlines of this world, and thro'That depth of darkness-like the bow,Called out of rain-clouds hue by hueSaw the grand, gradual picture grow;-The covenant with human kindBy ALLA made-the chains of FateHe round himself and them hath twined,Till his high task he consummate;-Till good from evil, love from hate,Shall be workt out thro' sin and pain,And Fate shall loose her iron chainAnd all be free, be bright again!

Such were the deep-drawn mysteries,And some, even more obscure, profound,And wildering to the mind than these,Which-far as woman's thought could sound,Or a fallen, outlawed spirit reach-She dared to learn and I to teach.Till-filled with such unearthly lore,And mingling the pure light it bringsWith much that fancy had beforeShed in false, tinted glimmerings-The enthusiast girl spoke out, as oneInspired, among her own dark race,Who from their ancient shrines would run,Leaving their holy rites undone,To gaze upon her holier face.And tho' but wild the things she spoke,Yet mid that play of error's smokeInto fair shapes by fancy curled,Some gleams of pure religion broke-Glimpses that have not yet awoke,But startled the still dreaming world!Oh! many a truth, remote, sublime,Which Heaven would from the minds of menHave kept concealed till its own time,Stole out in these revealments then-Revealments dim that have forerun,By ages, the great, Sealing One!Like that imperfect dawn or lightEscaping from the Zodiac's signs,Which makes the doubtful east half bright,Before the real morning shines!

Thus did some moons of bliss go by-Of bliss to her who saw but loveAnd knowledge throughout earth and sky;To whose enamored soul and eyeI seemed-as is the sun on high-The light of all below, above,The spirit of sea and land and air,Whose influence, felt everywhere,Spread from its centre, her own heart,Even to the world's extremest part;While thro' that world her rainless mindHad now careered so fast and far,That earth itself seemed left behindAnd her proud fancy unconfinedAlready saw Heaven's gates ajar!

Happy enthusiast! still, oh! stillSpite of my own heart's mortal chill,Spite of that double-fronted sorrowWhich looks at once before and back,Beholds the yesterday, the morrow,And sees both comfortless, both black-Spite of all this, I could have stillIn her delight forgot all ill;Or if pain would not be forgot,At least have borne and murmured not.When thoughts of an offended heaven,Of sinfulness, which I-even I,While down its steep most headlong driven-Well knew could never be forgiven,Came o'er me with an agonyBeyond all reach of mortal woe-A torture kept for those who know.

Know every thing, and-worst of all-Know and love Virtue while they fall!Even then her presence had the powerTo soothe, to warm-nay, even to bless-If ever bliss could graft its flowerOn stem so full of bitterness-Even then her glorious smile to meBrought warmth and radiance if not balm;Like moonlight o'er a troubled sea.Brightening the storm it cannot calm.

Oft too when that disheartening fear,Which all who love, beneath yon sky,Feel when they gaze on what is dear-The dreadful thought that it must die!That desolating thought which comesInto men's happiest hours and homes;Whose melancholy boding flingsDeath's shadow o'er the brightest things,Sicklies the infant's bloom and spreadsThe grave beneath young lovers' heads!This fear, so sad to all-to meMost full of sadness from the thoughtThat I most still live on, when sheWould, like the snow that on the seaFell yesterday, in vain be sought;That heaven to me this final sealOf all earth's sorrow would deny,And I eternally must feelThe death-pang without power to die!

Even this, her fond endearments-fondAs ever cherisht the sweet bond'Twixt heart and heart-could charm away;Before her looks no clouds would stay,Or if they did their gloom was gone,Their darkness put a glory on!But 'tis not, 'tis not for the wrong,The guilty, to be happy long;And she too now had sunk withinThe shadow of her tempter's sin,Too deep for even OmnipotenceTo snatch the fated victim thence!Listen and if a tear there beLeft in your hearts weep it for me.

'Twas on the evening of a day,Which we in love had dreamt away;In that same garden, where-the prideOf seraph splendor laid aside,And those wings furled, whose open lightFor mortal gaze were else too bright-I first had stood before her sight,And found myself-oh, ecstasy,Which even in pain I ne'er forget-Worshipt as only God should be,And loved as never man was yet!In that same garden where we now,Thoughtfully side by side reclining,Her eyes turned upward and her browWith its own silent fancies shining.

It was an evening bright and stillAs ever blusht on wave or bower,Smiling from heaven as if naught illCould happen in so sweet an hour.Yet I remember both grew sadIn looking at that light-even she,Of heart so fresh and brow so glad,Felt the still hour's solemnity,And thought she saw in that reposeThe death-hour not alone of light,But of this whole fair world-the closeOf all things beautiful and bright-The last, grand sunset, in whose rayNature herself died calm away!

At length, as tho' some livelier thoughtHad suddenly her fancy caught,She turned upon me her dark eyes,Dilated into that full shapeThey took in joy, reproach, surprise,As 'twere to let more soul escape,And, playfully as on my headHer white hand rested, smiled and said:-

'I had last night a dream of thee,'Resembling those divine ones, given,'Like preludes to sweet minstrelsy,'Before thou camest thyself from heaven.

'The same rich wreath was on thy brow,'Dazzling as if of starlight made;'And these wings, lying darkly now,'Like meteors round thee flasht and played.

'Thou stoodest, all bright, as in those dreams,'As if just wafted from above,'Mingling earth's warmth with heaven's beams,'And creature to adore and love.

'Let me this once but feel the flame'Of those spread wings, the very pride'Will change my nature, and this frame'By the mere touch be deified!'

Thus spoke the maid, as one not usedTo be by earth or heaven refused-As one who knew her influence o'erAll creatures, whatsoe'er they were,And tho' to heaven she could not soar,At least would bring down heaven to her.

Little did she, alas! or I-Even I, whose soul, but halfway yetImmerged in sin's obscurityWas as the earth whereon we lie,O'er half whose disk the sun is set-Little did we foresee the fate,The dreadful-how can it be told?Such pain, such anguish to relateIs o'er again to feel, behold!But, charged as 'tis, my heart must speakIts sorrow out or it will break!Some dark misgivings had, I own,Past for a moment thro' my breast-Fears of some danger, vague, unknown,To one, or both-something unblestTo happen from this proud request.

But soon these boding fancies fled;Nor saw I aught that could forbidMy full revealment save the dreadOf that first dazzle, when, unhid,Such light should burst upon a lidNe'er tried in heaven;-and even this glareShe might, by love's own nursing care,Be, like young eagles, taught to bear.For well I knew, the lustre shedFrom cherub wings, when proudliest spread,Was in its nature lambent, pure,And innocent as is the lightThe glow-worm hangs out to allureHer mate to her green bower at night.Oft had I in the mid-air sweptThro' clouds in which the lightning slept,As in its lair, ready to spring,Yet waked it not-tho' from my wingA thousand sparks fell glittering!Oft too when round me from aboveThe feathered snow in all its whiteness,Fell like the moultings of heaven's Dove,-So harmless, tho' so full of brightness,Was my brow's wreath that it would shakeFrom off its flowers each downy flakeAs delicate, unmelted, fair,And cool as they had lighted there.

Nay even with LILIS-had I notAround her sleep all radiant beamed,Hung o'er her slumbers nor forgotTo kiss her eyelids as she dreamed?And yet at morn from that repose,Had she not waked, unscathed and bright,As doth the pure, unconscious roseTho' by the fire-fly kist all night?

Thus having-as, alas! deceivedBy my sin's blindness, I believed-No cause for dread and those dark eyesNow fixt upon me eagerlyAs tho' the unlocking of the skiesThen waited but a sign from me-How could I pause? how even let fallA word; a whisper that could stirIn her proud heart a doubt that allI brought from heaven belonged to her?Slow from her side I rose, while sheArose too, mutely, tremblingly,But not with fear-all hope, and pride,She waited for the awful boon,Like priestesses at eventideWatching the rise of the full moonWhose light, when once its orb hath shone,'Twill madden them to look upon!

Of all my glories, the bright crownWhich when I last from heaven came downWas left behind me in yon starThat shines from out those clouds afar-Where, relic sad, 'tis treasured yet,The downfallen angel's coronet!-Of all my glories, this aloneWas wanting:-but the illumined brow,The sun-bright locks, the eyes that nowHad love's spell added to their own,And poured a light till then unknown;-The unfolded wings that in their playShed sparkles bright as ALLA'S throne;All I could bring of heaven's array,Of that rich panoply of charmsA Cherub moves in, on the dayOf his best pomp, I now put on;And, proud that in her eyes I shoneThus glorious, glided to her arms;Which still (tho', at a sight so splendid,Her dazzled brow had instantlySunk on her breast), were wide extendedTo clasp the form she durst not see!Great Heaven! how could thy vengeance lightSo bitterly on one so bright?How could the hand that gave such charms,Blast them again in love's own arms?Scarce had I touched her shrinking frame,When-oh most horrible!-I feltThat every spark of that pure flame-Pure, while among the stars I dwelt-Was now by my transgression turnedInto gross, earthly fire, which burned,Burned all it touched as fast as eyeCould follow the fierce, ravening flashes;Till there-oh God, I still ask whySuch doom was hers?-I saw her lieBlackening within my arms to ashes!That brow, a glory but to see-Those lips whose touch was what the firstFresh cup of immortalityIs to a new-made angel's thirst!

Those clasping arms, within whose round-My heart's horizon-the whole boundOf its hope, prospect, heaven was found!Which, even in this dread moment, fondAs when they first were round me cast,Loosed not in death the fatal bond,But, burning, held me to the last!All, all, that, but that morn, had seemedAs if Love's self there breathed and beamed,Now parched and black before me lay,Withering in agony away;And mine, oh misery! mine the flameFrom which this desolation came;-I, the curst spirit whose caressHad blasted all that loveliness!

'Twas maddening!-but now hear even worse-Had death, death only, been the curseI brought upon her-had the doomBut ended here, when her young bloomLay in the dust-and did the spiritNo part of that fell curse inherit,'Twere not so dreadful-but, come near-Too shocking 'tis for earth to hear-Just when her eyes in fading tookTheir last, keen, agonized farewell,And looked in mine with-oh, that look!Great vengeful Power, whate'er the hellThou mayst to human souls assign,The memory of that look is mine!-

In her last struggle, on my browHer ashy lips a kiss imprest,So withering!-I feel it now-'Twas fire-but fire, even more unblestThan was my own, and like that flame,The angels shudder but to name,Hell's everlasting element!Deep, deep it pierced into my brain,Maddening and torturing as it went;And here, mark here, the brand, the stainIt left upon my front-burnt inBy that last kiss of love and sin-A brand which all the pomp and prideOf a fallen Spirit cannot hide!

But is it thus, dread Providence-Can it indeed be thus, that sheWho, (but for one proud, fond offence,)Had honored heaven itself, should beNow doomed-I cannot speak it-no,Merciful ALLA! 'tis not so-Never could lips divine have saidThe fiat of a fate so dread.And yet, that look-so deeply fraughtWith more than anguish, with despair-That new, fierce fire, resembling naughtIn heaven or earth-this scorch I bear!-Oh-for the first time that these kneesHave bent before thee since my fall,Great Power, if ever thy decreesThou couldst for prayer like mine recall,Pardon that spirit, and on me,On me, who taught her pride to err,Shed out each drop of agonyThy burning phial keeps for her!See too where low beside me kneelTwo other outcasts who, tho' goneAnd lost themselves, yet dare to feelAnd pray for that poor mortal one.Alas, too well, too well they knowThe pain, the penitence, the woeThat Passion brings upon the best,The wisest, and the loveliest.-Oh! who is to be saved, if suchBright, erring souls are not forgiven;So loath they wander, and so muchTheir very wanderings lean towards heaven!Again I cry. Just Power, transferThat creature's sufferings all to me-Mine, mine the guilt, the torment be,To save one minute's pain to her,Let mine last all eternity!

He paused and to the earth bent downHis throbbing head; while they who feltThat agony as 'twere their own,Those angel youths, beside him knelt,And in the night's still silence there,While mournfully each wandering airPlayed in those plumes that never moreTo their lost home in heaven must soar,Breathed inwardly the voiceless prayer,Unheard by all but Mercy's ear-And which if Mercy did not hear,Oh, God would not be what this brightAnd glorious universe of His,This world of beauty, goodness, lightAnd endless love proclaims He is!

Not long they knelt, when from a woodThat crowned that airy solitude,They heard a low, uncertain sound,As from a lute, that just had foundSome happy theme and murmured roundThe new-born fancy, with fond tone,Scarce thinking aught so sweet its own!Till soon a voice, that matched as wellThat gentle instrument, as suitsThe sea-air to an ocean-shell,(So kin its spirit to the lute's),Tremblingly followed the soft strain,Interpreting its joy, its pain,And lending the light wings of wordsTo many a thought that else had lainUnfledged and mute among the chords.

All started at the sound-but chiefThe third young Angel in whose face,Tho' faded like the others, griefHad left a gentler, holier trace;As if, even yet, thro' pain and ill,Hope had not fled him-as if stillHer precious pearl in sorrow's cupUnmelted at the bottom lay,To shine again, when, all drunk up,The bitterness should pass away.Chiefly did he, tho' in his eyesThere shone more pleasure than surprise,Turn to the wood from whence that soundOf solitary sweetness broke;Then, listening, look delighted roundTo his bright peers, while thus it spoke:-'Come, pray with me, my seraph love,'My angel-lord, come pray with me:'In vain to-night my lips hath strove'To send one holy prayer above-'The knee may bend, the lip may move,'But pray I cannot, without thee!'I've fed the altar in my bower'With droppings from the incense tree;'I've sheltered it from wind and shower,'But dim it burns the livelong hour,'As if, like me, it had no power'Of life or lustre without thee!

'A boat at midnight sent alone'To drift upon the moonless sea,'A lute, whose leading chord is gone,'A wounded bird that hath but one'Imperfect wing to soar upon,'Are like what I am without thee!

The song had ceased when from the woodWhich sweeping down that airy height,Reached the lone spot whereon they stood-There suddenly shone out a lightFrom a clear lamp, which, as it blazedAcross the brow of one, who raisedIts flame aloft (as if to throwThe light upon that group below),Displayed two eyes sparkling betweenThe dusky leaves, such as are seenBy fancy only, in those faces,That haunt a poet's walk at even,Looking from out their leafy placesUpon his dreams of love and heaven.'Twas but a moment-the blush broughtO'er all her features at the thoughtOf being seen thus, late, alone,By any but the eyes she sought,Had scarcely for an instant shoreThro' the dark leaves when she was gone-Gone, like a meteor that o'erheadSuddenly shines, and, ere we've said,'Behold, how beautiful!'-'tis fled,Yet ere she went the words, 'I come,'I come, my NAMA,' reached her ear,In that kind voice, familiar, dear,Which tells of confidence, of home,-Of habit, that hath drawn hearts near,Till they grow one,-of faith sincere,And all that Love most loves to hear;A music breathing of the past,The present and the time to be,Where Hope and Memory to the lastLengthen out life's true harmony!

Nor long did he whom call so kindSummoned away remain behind:Nor did there need much time to tellWhat they-alas! more fallen than heFrom happiness and heaven-knew well,His gentler love's short history!

Thus did it run-not as he toldThe tale himself, but as 'tis gravedUpon the tablets that, of old,By SETH were from the deluge saved,All written over with sublimeAnd saddening legends of the unblestBut glorious Spirits of that time,And this young Angel's 'mong the rest.

Always Find The Time

Written: stock aitken waterman, james1a:Youre the first thing in the morningAnd the last thing at nightAnd Ill always hear you callingYoure always on my mind1b:I dont want no-one but you, ooh oohAnd I dont need a second stringI dont want a share of you, ooh, oohI wanna be your everythingChorus:Sunrise - as long as youll be mineMidnight - that would be just fineRain or shine - it wouldnt change my mindI-i-i-always find the time2:Look around meI can always see your faceTheres a feeling thats surroundingIts in every move you makeAll the other guys I see, ooh ohhThey dont get a second chanceFunny they dont interest me, ohh ohhI dont give them a second glanceChorus:Chorus:1b:Chorus: (repeat & fade)

The Heroes Of Tureengarriffe

'Tis part of Duhallow and Sliabh Luacra history now how Sean Moylan and his menAmbushed and inflicted heavy losses on the Black and Tans at Tureengarriffe GlenAlmost three decades before I was even born and all but nine decades agoSince the heroes of North Cork and East kerry into the status of legends did growOne thing that can be said of war is that heroes it never does fail to createAnd even the victors of the smallest battles we always do see fit to celebrateThe winners write the history of the battles that's how it is and will always beIn the annals of Sliabh Luachra and Duhallow the heroes of Tureengarriffe created their own historyAround the fire-grate when I was a young boy the old men stories of battles toldThey took up arms for Irish Independence when they were younger men in days of oldLong past their prime and they had done their fighting but at the end did it matter that much at allThe British left and the civil war then started which gave rise to the birth of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, The heroes of Tureengarrife now are resting in their towns and villages in cemeteries far awayEventually they fell to the scythe of the reaper it can be said of them they had their day.

The AFL Football

He was exactly like his famous DadWhen he was all stitched upOf this fact he was very gladHis father had a special role in the 2005 premiership cupDon't laugh when I tell youThis story is very trueHe was a football; Aussie madeWith anyone else, he wouldn't ever tradeOf his father he was very proudCheer cheer roared the crowdIt was a moment that would certainly goDown in sporting history; this for sure he did knowLeo Barry; what a mark indeedAll the Sydney Swans fans agreedThe sea of red and whiteWhat a glorious sightHe only wished that he could have been thereWith him, all of his special memories; his Dad always did shareIn a game a football is an important partOf it all; this is the heartWithout a football, there'd be no gameWhich of course would be a crying shameThousands of people travel to the A N Z Stadium or S C GroundTo see a football thrown or kicked aroundEveryone gets excited to seeThe game being played passionatelyThe moment that is above the restIs when Adam Goodes passes every testTo kick the winning goalHe plays with his heart and soulThe football's father at last did retireTo always be like him; was his son's desireAFL is at the top of every sports fan's game listNever ever to be missed

Dogs In The Midwinter

You ever had a day like I had today,When things are stacked up bad? You look around and every face you seeSeems guaranteed to send you mad.And you peer into those hallowed institutions.And they bark at you from every side.But the bite goes wide.I see them running with their tails hanging lowLike dogs in the midwinter.The prophets and the wise men and the hard politicosAre all dogs in the midwinter.Let the breath from the mountain still the pain,Clear water from the fountain run sweeter than the rain.Dogs in the midwinter.The boss man and the tax man and the moneylenders growl...Like dogs in the midwinter.The weaker of the herd can feel their eyes and hear them howlLike dogs in the midwinter.Though the fox and the rabbit are at peace,Cold doggies in the manger turn last suppers into feasts.Dogs in the midwinter.You ever had a day like I had today ---Dogs in the midwinter.You look around and every face you see ---Dogs in the midwinter.And you peer into those hallowed institutions.And they bark at you from every side.But the bite goes wide.Were all running on a tightrope, wearing slippers in the snow...Were all dogs in the midwinter.The ice is ever thinner. be careful how you goLike dogs in the midwinter.And its hard to find true equilibriumWhen youre looking at each other down the muzzle of a gun.Dogs in the midwinter.

As The Loveliest Diamond

Thou art, as the loveliest diamond: The hardest 'substance' known to man-To forget-even if I were prime, andAccepted such, I do not know if I can.Should I possess 1,000 lifetimes to do so, And all manner of distraction along the way, I would ne'er hope for this ardor to go-And should it-I would surely rue the dayThat this resplendent glory would have past, From mine sight and be known by me, no more.

This, my beloved, is the hold thou hastUpon me, and thou art all I ever could have hoped for-Until that day when a 'flaw' was found: One that you wished away, lest you have to face it.Perhaps, this was not presented to confound, But rather, as the most effective way to erase it, Both as a source of fear and as an impediment To what otherwise was amorous 'perfection'; Perhaps, its presentation was not yet meantTo be-and it was in need of further maturation.

I am reminded of sentiment that you ceded to me-Which spoke of what you believed you needed to beBefore you could allow for this couplet-Ironically, the diamond bespeaks of it: The one factor that sets it apart from all else.This 'imperfection' is one that only you may propulse-With the reward, all that it now keeps away! Once gone, all form of trepidation sweeps away, Almost as though it were never even there; Of course, why would you even dareTake one step closer to this 'perfection', Unless what awaits you is worth this self-insurrection-Toward a part of you, with which you wish to part! ? You must surely beg this anguish to part, So that you may find the inner-contentmentThat dwells within you-this will take commitment, Both to yourself and to the gift that awaits you-Both to what you could be, and what that creates, too!

The Sea Deceives Me

The pages of the calendar fall to the ground, crunch crunch crunch under our feet, grinding themselves to dust. Hours and numbers, days and months cover the earth with mosaic colors as if a tempest had broken open a damn and they flood out into our fields, we rake them up, unspoken we burn them, we stuff them in threadbare and patchy clothing, we make scarecrows up to look like our former selves, others we stuff in gutters and drains. There are pages from a hundred years back in some darkening silence in the deepest of woodlands, these leaves mixed with the dirtiest of branches; histories at the foot of precipices slouching on the meanders of rivers flowing into the sunset, they dwell in the pits of caves, and in the nests of baby birds. We lay our backs down and swim through the pages, we fall asleep and neglect our lazy day, the sounds and the smells, the tastes and the textures of the times we've inherited (we have (and the time ahead.) New years take shape and more time buds, the seasons pass and we decorate the decaying earth. new days are piled up: in piles of bills, piles of events, piles of junk mail, invitations torn and abandoned, occasions attended and written about, solidarities and intimacies cherished and worshiped

They are still there in the air- you act as if they're not passing by, new pages swiftly sway in the winds hand and rest on the earth. In numbers and records. The pointless statistics of time, taken time and time again.We waste our time on something like memories and plansuntil time our runs out for us like counting the fallen leaves as a derelict train creeps through the country - how absurdly endless a tasktime is not statistics nor even measurabletime is not a standard of options weighable, time is not a parquet floor where a curtain stretches, that you shoot marbles across, or even throw a rug over then slowly rock yourself to sleep ontime is chiseled in caves and evolves with mantime is all things existing and all things alivetime is being and being is timeless(time isn't for a spitting audience but for the expression of the mind the body the expansion of the soul; don't sit back and watch life ebb into the dirt; create explore, and experience its glorious spray and the endless internal tributaries to your mind.) (The motions of our glorious feet sweeping and gliding acting out the moment part in a tenuous spectrum of soapy film and endless possibility that will survive untouched by the stone pillars of sleeping spectators)

Alexander's Feast; Or, The Power Of Music

'Twas at the royal feast for Persia wonBy Philip's warlike son— Aloft in awful stateThe godlike hero sateOn his imperial throne;His valiant peers were placed around,Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound(So should desert in arms be crowned);The lovely Thais by his sideSate like a blooming eastern brideIn flower of youth and beauty's pride:— Happy, happy, happy pair!None but the braveNone but the braveNone but the brave deserves the fair!

Timotheus placed on highAmid the tuneful quireWith flying fingers touched the lyre;The trembling notes ascend the skyAnd heavenly joys inspire.The song began from JoveWho left his blissful seats above— Such is the power of mighty love!A dragon's fiery form belied the godSublime on radiant spires he rodeWhen he to fair Olympia prest,And while he sought her snowy breast,Then round her slender waist he curled,And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.- The listening crowd admire the lofty sound!A present deity! they shout around:A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound!With ravished earsThe monarch hears,Assumes the god,Affects to nod,And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young:The jolly god in triumph comes!Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!Flushed with a purple graceHe shows his honest face:Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes!Bacchus, ever fair and young,Drinking joys did first ordain;Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,Drinking is the soldier's pleasure:Rich the treasure,Sweet the pleasure,Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;Fought all his battles o'er again,And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.The master saw the madness rise,His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;And while he Heaven and Earth defiedChanged his hand and checked his pride.He chose a mournful MuseSoft pity to infuse:He sung Darius great and good,By too severe a fateFallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,Fallen from his high estate,And weltering in his blood;Deserted, at his utmost need,By those his former bounty fed;On the bare earth exposed he liesWith not a friend to close his eyes.- With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,Revolving in his altered soulThe various turns of Chance below;And now and then a sigh he stole,And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smiled to seeThat love was in the next degree;'Twas but a kindred-sound to move,For pity melts the mind to love.Softly sweet, in Lydian measuresSoon he soothed his soul to pleasures.War, he sung, is toil and trouble,Honour but an empty bubble;Never ending, still beginning,Fighting still, and still destroying;If the world be worth thy winning,Think, O think, it worth enjoying:Lovely Thais sits beside thee,Take the good the gods provide thee!- The many rend the skies with loud applause;So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause.The prince, unable to conceal his pain,Gazed on the fairWho caused his care,And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,Sighed and looked, and sighed again:At length with love and wine at once opprestThe vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again:A louder yet, and yet a louder strain!Break his bands of sleep asunder

And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder.Hark, hark! the horrid soundHas raised up his head:As awaked from the deadAnd amazed he stares around.Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,See the Furies ariselSee the snakes that they rearHow they hiss in their hair,And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!Behold a ghastly band,Each a torch in his hand!Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slainAnd unburied remainInglorious on the plain:Give the vengeance dueTo the valiant crew!Behold how they toss their torches on high,How they point to the Persian abodesAnd glittering temples of their hostile gods.- The princes applaud with a furious joy:And the King seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;Thais led the wayTo light him to his prey,And like another Helen, fired another Troy!

- Thus, long ago,Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,While organs yet were mute,Timotheus, to his breathing fluteAnd sounding lyre,Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.At last divine Cecilia came,Inventress of the vocal frame;The sweet enthusiast from her sacred storeEnlarged the former narrow bounds,And added length to solemn sounds,With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.- Let old Timotheus yield the prizeOr both divide the crown;He raised a mortal to the skies;She drew an angel down!

The Circus

I remember when I wrote The CircusI was living in Paris, or rather we were living in ParisJanice, Frank was alive, the Whitney MuseumWas still on 8th Street, or was it still something else?Fernand Léger lived in our buildingWell it wasn’t really our building it was the building we lived inNext to a Grand Guignol troupe who made a lot of noiseSo that one day I yelled through a hole in the wallOf our apartment I don’t know why there was a hole thereShut up! And the voice came back to me saying somethingI don’t know what. Once I saw Léger walk out of the buildingI think. Stanley Kunitz came to dinner. I wrote The CircusIn two tries, the first getting most of the first stanza;That fall I also wrote an opera libretto called Louisa or Matilda.Jean-Claude came to dinner. He said (about “cocktail sauce”)It should be good on something but not on these (oysters).By that time I think I had already written The CircusWhen I came back, having been annoyed to have to goI forget what I went there aboutYou were back in the apartment what a dump actually we liked itI think with your hair and your writing and the pansMoving strummingly about the kitchen and I wrote The CircusIt was a summer night no it was an autumn one summer whenI remember it but actually no autumn that black dusk toward the post officeAnd I wrote many other poems then but The Circus was the bestMaybe not by far the best Geography was also wonderfulAnd the Airplane Betty poems (inspired by you) but The Circus was the best.

Sometimes I feel I actually am the personWho did this, who wrote that, including that poem The CircusBut sometimes on the other hand I don’t.There are so many factors engaging our attention!At every moment the happiness of others, the health of those we know and our own!And the millions upon millions of people we don’t know and their well-being to think aboutSo it seems strange I found time to write The CircusAnd even spent two evenings on it, and that I have also the timeTo remember that I did it, and remember you and me then, and write this poem about itAt the beginning of The CircusThe Circus girls are rushing through the nightIn the circus wagons and tulips and other flowers will be pickedA long time from now this poem wants to get off on its ownSomeplace like a painting not held to a depiction of composing The Circus.

Noel Lee was in Paris then but usually out of itIn Germany or Denmark giving a concertAs part of an endless activityWhich was either his career or his happiness or a combination of bothOr neither I remember his dark eyes looking he was nervousWith me perhaps because of our days at Harvard.

It is understandable enough to be nervous with anybody!

How softly and easily one feels when aloneLove of one’s friends when one is commanding the time and space syndromeIf that’s the right word which I doubt but together how come one is so nervous?One is not always but what was I then and what am I now attempting to createIf create is the right wordOut of this combination of experience and alonenessAnd who are you telling me it is or is not a poem (not you?) Go back with me thoughTo those nights I was writing The Circus.Do you like that poem? have you read it? It is in my book Thank YouWhich Grove just reprinted. I wonder how long I am going to liveAnd what the rest will be like I mean the rest of my life.

John Cage said to me the other night How old are you? and I told him forty-six(Since then I’ve become forty-seven) he saidOh that’s a great age I remember.John Cage once told me he didn’t charge much for his mushroom identification course (at the New School)Because he didn’t want to make a profit from nature

He was ahead of his time I was behind my time we were both in timeBrilliant go to the head of the class and “time is a river”It doesn’t seem like a river to me it seems like an unformed planDays go by and still nothing is decided aboutWhat to do until you know it never will be and then you say “time”But you really don’t care much about it any moreTime means something when you have the major part of yours ahead of youAs I did in Aix-en-Provence that was three years before I wrote The CircusThat year I wrote Bricks and The Great Atlantic RainwayI felt time surround me like a blanket endless and softI could go to sleep endlessly and wake up and still be in itBut I treasured secretly the part of me that was individually changingLike Noel Lee I was interested in my careerAnd still am but now it is like a town I don’t want to leaveNot a tower I am climbing opposed by ferocious enemies

I never mentioned my friends in my poems at the time I wrote The CircusAlthough they meant almost more than anything to meOf this now for some time I’ve felt an attenuationSo I’m mentioning them maybe this will bring them back to meNot them perhaps but what I felt about themJohn Ashbery Jane Freilicher Larry Rivers Frank O’HaraTheir names alone bring tears to my eyesAs seeing Polly did last nightIt is beautiful at any time but the paradox is leaving itIn order to feel it when you’ve come back the sun has declinedAnd the people are merrier or else they’ve gone home altogetherAnd you are left alone well you put up with that your sureness is like the sunWhile you have it but when you don’t its lack’s a black and icy night. I came homeAnd wrote The Circus that night, Janice. I didn’t come and speak to youAnd put my arm around you and ask you if you’d like to take a walkOr go to the Cirque Medrano though that’s what I wrote poems aboutAnd am writing about that now, and now I’m alone

And this is not as good a poem as The CircusAnd I wonder if any good will come of either of them all the same.

The Last Song

Someday you will find the placeIt's the place where love takes over hateThen you'll see all the things you doEffect everyone around youThen you'll see there's no fear at allYou held my hand we took down that wallAs I looked at you with nothing to sayNow I understand why you pushed me awayI look far and now i seeThe only one I needed was me

The Trap

The Trap

This the first dream, know I’m asleep but don’t want to I try to wake up but cannot move. Injured by panic I try to move but my body will notobey me immobile trapped in my body.Open your eyes, try roll onto the floor grasp, try touch the wall, there is no wall space is intense.Finally I get up walk into the living room, but sleepIs like a boa constrictor around my neck I fall and fall through the endless universe, fly toobut not to where I want to go.Pain has awoken me, I see light it is dawn and walk on to the terrace, another narrow survival Over the ridge I spy the sun, my only true lover and I sing a tune from a Gary Cooper movie: “Do notforsake me, o my darling…”

Shut Down The Canadian Parole Board

SHUT DOWN THE CANADIAN PAROLE BOARD JUNE 23RD,2012BYJAMES BREDIN

Why do we have to listen and obey the Parole Board pantomime? And why can't these prisoners be required to serve all of their time? And the Parole Board should be shut down for at least twenty years, They are the problem that allow killers free without tears.

Killers back on the street is a reason why parole boards should be shut down, If we had binding referendums, we could bring this around, We don't even have set-date elections as released killers walk free, As they all claim Trudeau's Charter Rights and the Parole Boards agree.

Parole Boards justify their existence by setting prisoners free, And no one questions this or any of the high-up appointees, It's a form of social cancer that should be changed and cut out, Just eliminate the Parole Boards and the accompanying doubt.